Skills and Workforce Development

Pillar 1

The recommendations focus on addressing Ireland’s critical construction workforce needs through coordinated, sustained investment across the skills pipeline, apprenticeship system, and industry capability.

The construction sector faces a dual challenge: attracting new entrants to the industry at sufficient scale while simultaneously upskilling the existing workforce to meet the demands of a more technologically complex, digitally enabled, and low-carbon sector. Apprenticeship, third-level training, and digital capability development are all critical levers, and each requires sustained, structured State investment to be effective.

Adequate staffing in the public, planning, and procurement sectors also remains a significant constraint on infrastructure delivery and must be addressed in parallel with workforce development within industry.

Overall, the recommendations aim to balance short-term labour supply pressures with long-term structural reforms to build a resilient, productive, and low-carbon construction sector.