Innovative techniques and technologies are set to drive growth, yet the industry faces major challenges in finding people with the right digital construction skills. Rebecca De Cicco, global chair of Women in BIM and principal for digital enablement at Aurecon, says it is time for action.
The Future of Jobs report, published in 2020 by the World Economic Forum, is a research summary of the jobs and skills of the future, tracking the pace of change across all sectors. It aims to shed light on the disruptions caused by the pandemic, contextualised within a longer history of economic cycles and the expected outlook for technology adoption, jobs and skills in the next five years.
Some of the data suggests that across the majority of the countries covered in the report, on average over 62% of organisations and their people will require some form of upskilling or training, regardless of the field they work in. The research showed that this would increase by a further 11% by 2025, highlighting the urgency of skills development and upskilling in technologies and processes relating to digital uptake across all sectors.
The ability for companies to harness growth potential relating to new processes and technological adoption is quite clearly hindered by skills shortages across all sectors globally. These skills gaps and the inability to attract the right talent remain among the leading barriers to the adoption of new technologies and processes.
This is particularly true for those who are employed in the construction industry. We are seeing high numbers of people either leaving the industry or pivoting into other industries with their digital skills, all fuelled by the construction market being slower than others in its digital adoption. We know what BIM, digital engineering and international standards are the drivers for our industry, yet we are currently faced with low numbers of skilled workers in this space. Why is this, and what can we do about it?
Industry-leading organisations should investigate ideas around the future of the skills requirement and the way we work to enable productivity and greater efficiencies. Although many organisations are beginning to do just this, there is still a resistance when it comes to the adoption of new technology and processes to allow organisations (large and small) to grow.
The pandemic has taught us that we need to change our approach toward the way we deliver projects and the technologies used to do so. It is a critical issue in our industry that only 42% of employees take up any opportunity to reskill or upskill in their roles, only further highlighting the resistance to enable change across the built environment. We need industry leaders to reverse this thinking and encourage change.
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