Smart Building Industry: Where are we?

The construction sector plays a significant role in the EU economy (approx. 9% of EU gross domestic product, 18 million direct jobs and 3 million enterprises) and in achieving key EU policy objectives according to the European Commission[1].

A building is considered smart when advanced technology systems and connectivity is deployed to contribute to the efficient resources use and increase both safety and comfort levels for the occupants. Build Up[2] states that the number of buildings globally deploying smart building technologies is forecasted to reach 115 million in 2026. Therefore, it is safe to say that the smart building technology market is increasingly expanding and flourishing lately and consequently creating a growing need for skilled workers and experts in the smart building sector.

Building automation offers us many advantages and benefits; but, with great power comes great responsibility. Indeed, providing proper training programs and workshops for the building sector professionals is necessary.

The sector is experiencing a shortage of skills and a gap in knowledge transfer. Indeed, the European construction sector observatory 2020 survey concluded that the lack of skilled human resource and lack of awareness and understanding are the two challenges affecting the most the digitalisation of the construction sector, followed by the cost of digital technologies.

The smart building industry is reported to suffer from the lack of skilled workers despite having a steep overgrowth in this sector’s job vacancies. The European Construction Observatory mentions that “One of the reasons behind the shortage of qualified workforce is the traditional image of the construction sector. Compared to many other industries, the construction sector has traditionally been slow at technological development and has undergone no major disruptive changes in the last decades” (Digitalisation in the construction sector[3], 2021).

Luckily, it is possible to overcome this skills shortage through construction educational programs and delivering graduates with high-quality smart building knowledge to the industry[4].

What is a Smart Building?

The concept of smart building is relatively new and recent, and many initiatives were established to embrace this novelty with its different related areas: data acquisition (sensors and IoT), automation processes (robotics) and digital information and analysis (digital twins, artificial intelligence and building information modelling). Recently, more and more programs and trainings are proposed along with initiatives and projects launched in the field of intelligent construction; however, actors in the construction field are still not very familiar with the concept and getting someone formally trained and accustomed to smart building technologies takes time and money. A study[5] was conducted to explore the general understanding of construction management students about smart buildings through assessing the level of smart building understanding and knowledge before and after a smart building workshop. The study concluded that there is a need to increase awareness of smart buildings’ concepts and that the low familiarity with the concept might be resulted from the fact that these students lack the real-life experience of visiting actual smart buildings. This suggests that construction educators could solve this problem by taking students on smart building tours.

Improving specialised training and making the sector more attractive, in particular for blue-collar workers, technical colleges and universities is one of the main objectives of the European Commission in the construction sector. Several projects financed by the European Commission are striving to raise awareness about the benefits of smart building, the importance of integrating smart building skills into curricula and encourage the training of the construction sector workforce. For example, the SmartBuilt4EU[6] project is an H2020 EU funded project that supports innovators from the smart building value chain through concrete networking and communication actions. This project is investigation cross-cutting issues in smart building in Task Force 4 and for the last white paper topic, the Task Force members will focus on the education and upskilling topic to emphasize the importance of skills development and education in the construction and energy efficiency sectors, identify the remaining gaps, and explore solutions to implement in the very next years in order to tackle them.

Contributions and participation in this white paper are welcome through joining the SmartBuilt4EU community here.