Construction Has Plenty of Work. The Bigger Question is Who Will Build It?
The construction industry’s workforce shortage is hardly new. Contractors have been talking about skilled labor, retiring workers and recruiting challenges for years.
But new research from EY suggests the industry may be approaching something different — a structural capacity problem that traditional recruiting alone cannot solve.
In its June 2026 report, How Structural Workforce Constraints Are Reshaping Engineering and Construction, EY argues that engineering and construction companies are facing a widening gap between the volume of work the market wants to build and the industry’s human capacity to deliver it.
That distinction matters.
Construction may increasingly have plenty of projects, plenty of capital and plenty of customers. What it may not have is enough people — with the right skills — to execute all of that work.
The Numbers Behind the Capacity Crunch
EY points to several indicators showing how significant the challenge has become.
The share of prime-age construction workers — those between 25 and 54 — has declined from 72% to 67% since 2015. At the same time, retirements are accelerating and experienced workers are taking decades of institutional knowledge with them.
The engineering pipeline may be even more concerning.
According to data cited by EY, there were approximately 679,500 open engineering positions in the United States as of April 2026, while only about 141,000 engineering graduates enter the workforce annually. EY’s accompanying white paper also notes that 94% of construction firms report difficulty finding qualified workers across trades and project roles.
And this isn’t simply a numbers problem.
EY reports that nearly half of the skills required for infrastructure work are expected to change within five years as digital technologies, regulatory requirements and increasingly integrated safety and quality systems reshape project delivery.
Construction therefore faces two workforce challenges simultaneously.
It needs more people.
And it needs people with different capabilities.
The Old Workforce Playbook Isn’t Enough
For decades, the industry’s response to labor shortages has been relatively predictable: recruit harder, raise wages, expand apprenticeship programs and convince more young people to enter construction.
Those efforts remain important.
But EY’s analysis suggests they won’t be enough.
The math increasingly works against a strategy based entirely on adding headcount. The talent pipeline isn’t growing fast enough, experienced workers are retiring, and other industries — including technology, advanced manufacturing and defense — are competing for many of the same technical skills.
The more important question for construction leaders may therefore become:
How do we dramatically increase the productive capacity of the people we already have?
That changes the workforce conversation.
From Labor Shortage to Productivity Strategy
If construction demand continues to grow faster than the industry’s workforce, contractors will need to rethink how work gets performed.
That means accelerating investments in areas such as:
- Prefabrication and modular construction
- Advanced fabrication
- Automation and robotics
- Artificial intelligence
- Digital project delivery
- Knowledge management
- Standardized processes
- Training and skills development
- Workforce forecasting and analytics
EY points specifically toward skills-first workforce planning, three-to-five-year forecasting of workforce requirements, stronger early-career development and greater use of AI for talent matching, internal mobility and knowledge sharing.
That is an important shift.
Technology is often discussed as a way to reduce costs. In a capacity-constrained construction market, technology may become equally important because it allows companies to do more work with the workforce they have.
AI Changes the Workforce Equation
Artificial intelligence adds another dimension.
The simplistic narrative says AI will replace construction jobs. The more immediate opportunity may be the opposite: AI can help a constrained workforce become more productive.
Project managers can spend less time assembling reports.
Estimators can analyze information faster.
Engineers can search specifications, drawings and historical project information more efficiently.
Superintendents can receive better visibility into emerging schedule and coordination risks.
Experienced employees can transfer institutional knowledge into searchable organizational systems rather than allowing that knowledge to disappear when they retire.
None of those applications eliminates the need for people.
They increase the leverage of the people already inside the organization.
And in an industry where qualified people are becoming one of the scarcest resources, that leverage could become a significant competitive advantage.
What This Means for Contractors in the Carolinas
The issue has particular relevance across North Carolina and South Carolina.
The Carolinas continue to compete for major investments across advanced manufacturing, infrastructure, power, health care, data centers and other capital-intensive sectors. Every major project entering the region competes for many of the same engineers, project managers, superintendents, electricians, mechanical trades and specialty workers.
Winning the project is only the first challenge.
Staffing it is increasingly the second.
That means workforce capacity should become part of strategic planning and business development.
Before pursuing the next major opportunity, contractors increasingly need to ask not only, “Can we win it?”
They also need to ask:
“Can we deliver it without weakening everything else we’re already building?”
That is a fundamentally different approach to growth.
Workforce Strategy Is Becoming Business Strategy
Perhaps the most important takeaway from the EY research is that workforce planning can no longer sit primarily within HR.
It belongs in the strategic planning conversation.
Market selection, backlog, workforce capacity, technology investment, training, succession planning and project delivery are becoming interconnected decisions.
The companies positioned to outperform won’t necessarily be those that hire the most people.
They may be the companies that become significantly better at developing, retaining, augmenting and deploying the people they already have.
For decades, construction’s workforce conversation has centered on one question:
Where will we find the next generation of workers?
That question still matters.
But another may become even more important:
How do we build significantly more with the workforce we’ve got?
That may be one of the defining strategic challenges — and opportunities — facing the construction industry over the next decade.
Read the EY research: How workforce constraints are reshaping engineering and construction
