Skilled trades remain in shortage across Australia despite a surge in migrant construction workers, new data shows.

But land availability and pricing remain the most significant barrier to new housing delivery (see below).

The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has released the December quarter edition of its HIA Trades Report.

Based on a survey of builders and trade contractors who were drawn from HIA’s membership, the report provides a quarterly review of the availability of skilled trades as well as any demand pressures on trades which operate in the residential construction sector.

It covers thirteen trade occupation categories which are critical for the residential building process.

At a national level, the report shows that a shortage of skilled trades remains across Australia.

All up, the HIA Trades Index remained virtually unchanged at -0.47 in the December quarter.

The index measures either shortages or oversupply of tradespeople based on a range from -2 to +2.

Any measure which is lower than 0.0 indicates a shortage of trades.

Leading the shortage is bricklaying (-1.02) and ceramic tiling (-0.88), followed by roofing (-0.75), carpentry (-0.62) and plastering (-0.54).

Only electrical trades were in modest surplus, with a reading of +0.05.

From a location viewpoint, the most severe trade shortages can be found in regional Queensland (-1.29), regional WA (-1.23), Brisbane (-0.90), Perth (-0.68) and Adelaide (0.50).

The shortage in trades comes even as Australia has seen a surge in construction migrant labour.

As of December 2025, figures from the Department of Home Affairs indicate that the number of 457/482 visa holders that were sponsored by construction industry employers throughout the nation reached a record 8,626.

This is more than double the number of a few years ago and is above the number that was recorded during the peak of the mining boom.

The latest data comes as demand for residential tradespeople across Australia is being driven by a recovery in new housing starts as well as healthy levels of home renovation investment.

The location of trade shortages across Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia reflects that much of the recovery in new home building activity thus far has been concentrated in these states.

However, the data also underscores challenges in securing a sufficient number of tradespeople to deliver the National Housing Target of 1.2 million new home completions over the five years to June 30 2029.

To meet this target, the nation needs to deliver an average of 60,000 new homes each quarter across the Accord period.

In the September quarter, however, the nation commenced only 48,778 homes.

With trade shortages evident at this level of construction, trade availability will be a constraint on the nation’s capacity to meet the target.

Commenting on the report, HIA Senior Economist Tom Devitt said that the housing industry continues to face a structural deficit in the availability of skilled tradespeople.

According to Devitt, this is likely to worsen as the recovery in new home building activity strengthens further.

Whilst he welcomed the increase in labour from overseas, Devitt warned that this is no substitute for ongoing development of Australia’s own domestic workforce capability.

“Improved access to skilled labour from overseas is helping contain, but has not yet eased, the shortage of skilled trades people in the building industry,” Devitt said.

“The HIA Trades Availability Index recorded -0.47 in the final quarter of 2025, consistent with Australia experiencing an ongoing structural shortage of skilled trades.”

“The expectation is that this shortage will deteriorate further as the volume of home building grows over the next year.

“Even with higher interest rates, home building activity is set to recover on the back of strong population growth, low unemployment rates and tight rental markets, while major construction projects around the Brisbane Olympics increasingly absorb excess labour from around the country.

“This shortage has seen more employers in the construction industry utilising pathways to access overseas skilled workers.

“There were more than 8,600 457/482 visa holders in Australia sponsored by the construction industry at the end of 2025, double the number from just a few years earlier and even more than during last decade’s mining boom.

“Western Australia and South Australia took in a disproportionate share of these arrivals, reflective of arguably the hottest home building markets in the nation.

“While these numbers were still less than one per cent of Australia’s total construction workforce, they represent a positive trend to increasing the size of the workforce.

“This increase in employer-sponsored workers in construction reflects some home building businesses shifting towards direct employment as a means of gaining secure access to workers.

“Access to overseas labour isn’t a replacement to developing Australia’s own domestic workforce capacity.

(Image source: HIA Trades Report – December quarter)

 

Why some trades are in shorter supply than others

Whilst overall shortages are being driven by the recovery in construction activity, the report also highlighted that shortages are more severe for some trade categories than others (see above).

Asked about this, Devitt said that several factors could be at play.

In relation to bricklaying, part of the shortage may be driven by the strength of the new home building market in Western Australia.

Home building activity in WA tends to have a particularly strong draw on demand for bricklayers.

This is not only because of the prevalence in detached home construction across WA (for which brick homes are popular) but also because of the prevalence of double brick homes as opposed to brick veneer homes in that state.

Other factors which may influence the relative availability of particular trades include:

  • competition from other projects/infrastructure
  • competition from other industries that have been more attractive to school leavers
  • the relative level of time and difficulty in training up new tradespeople
  • the relative difficulty in obtaining suitably qualified workers from overseas, and
  • the relative progress as housing projects move through various stages of construction.

In terms of electrical trades, for example, Devitt points out overseas electricians may be easier to source relative to some other trades as this tends to be a more standard qualification internationally.

Also, electricians and plumbers tend to be more popular trade routes for apprentices compared with other trades such as masonry, roof tilers and bricklayers. This view is supported by apprenticeship numbers from the National Centre for Vocational Educational Research (NVCER).

In 2024, there were 12,185 apprenticeship commencements for electricians nationwide – an increase of 26.1 per cent compared to 2019.

By contrast, apprenticeship commencements for bricklayers and roof tilers stood at only 630 and 155 respectively. Compared with 2019 levels, these were down by 23.6 percent and 49.1 percent respectively.

Combined, these two factors may explain why electricians are in adequate supply despite demand for electricians on energy transition work and the push to fully electrify new and existing buildings.

Finally, Devitt says that shortages depend on the relative progress as housing projects move through various stages of completion.

When a lot of new projects are beginning, especially in WA, bricklaying will be in high demand.

As these projects move toward completion, ‘finishing’ trades like plastering will be in relatively higher demand.

 

How apartment building recovery will impact trade demand

An interesting consideration involves how construction of different housing typologies will impact demand for various trades.

In the early phase of the recovery in new home building, activity was primarily concentrated around the detached house segment of the market.

Over the past year, however, the pipeline of multi-residential work has grown as a greater number of unit, townhouse and apartment projects have come online.

In terms of how this impacts trade availability, Devitt says that there is likely to be more cross-over in worker skillsets between large apartment projects and non-residential/public infrastructure projects than there are between house builders and the larger projects.

He says that this will be a challenge for larger apartment projects going forward as they are competing more directly with government and non-residential sectors in commercial building and civil construction.

Over the longer term, he says that trade availability will also be impacted by further trends.

These include the sourcing of skilled migrants from overseas and longer-term trends in domestic workforce development.

On the latter point, this includes support for apprentices, training organisations and businesses who take on apprentices.

 

Land the biggest constraint on affordable housing delivery

Whilst skilled trades availability remains a challenge, Devitt stresses that the cost and availability of vacant residential land which is serviced and ready to be sold for new housing development remains the biggest challenge to affordable housing delivery.

This is the case as the median cost of vacant residential land in greenfield markets has risen by more than fivefold overall and by more than sixfold on a square meter basis over the past 25 years.

“Shortages of shovel ready land also need to be addressed as the number one constraint on home building,” Devitt said.

“While skilled trade and building material prices have more than doubled since the turn of the century, the price of the typical block of land has increased more than six-fold.

“In the most recent year alone, skilled trade and building material prices were up by just 0.9 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively, while residential lot prices have re-accelerated to more than 10 per cent.

“Policymakers need to work to contain land costs and ensure Australia has the workforce to meet its current and future construction needs.”

 

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