Sydney, and the rest of Australia, is undergoing an infrastructure boom. The Government is spending huge amounts on improving roads and constructing public transport infrastructure to make it easier for Australians to travel around their cities.
But, like other sectors, the construction sector is experiencing major skill shortages putting these large-scale projects at risk of overruns in terms of time and budgets.
Recently UTS hosted a discussion asking experts in the sector how we might attract the 105,000 people needed to build these large-scale projects over the coming years.
Hosted by Martin Locke, a lecturer at UTS and an infrastructure specialist with over 30 years of experience, panelist experts included Jon Davies, the CEO of Australian Constructors Association, Larry McGrath, General Manager – NSW and ACT, McConnell Dowell, Pilar Gomez, Head of Organisational Talent and Wellbeing, Acciona, David Lehman, Executive General Manager Building and Development, John Holland Group and Lana Kennedy, Project Manager, CBRE.
To hear what our experts had to say, and the strategies, ideas and suggestions as to how to combat the substantial challenges the industry is facing around skills shortages, watch the replay of the session here:
The general consensus was that the organisations in the sector were making some changes, such as progress around a shift from adversarial contracting to collaborative contracting as well as the implementation of a five-day working week initiative at Concord Hospital. There are also more organisations with targets around diversity, apprenticeships and training.
All agreed that there was a need to uplift productivity by embracing digital innovation and modern methods of construction as well as trying to actually entice new recruits by demonstrating that this industry does actually provide exciting growth opportunities.
Martin is a UTS lecturer and an expert in infrastructure. He's a former partner of PwC having led the infrastructure advisory practice in Sydney for over 12 years. Prior to that, he was an investment banker with Deutsche Morgan Greenfeld group with a focus on infrastructure project financing. His clients have included Infrastructure Australia, new South Wales government, and Sydney Metro. Martin is a council member of the International Project Finance Association. He's also an accredited gateway reviewer and a member of infrastructure New South Wales Panel.
If your organisation needs to develop new skills in your workforce, talk to us at PLUS UTS to find out how we can help.
