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Construction activity is ramping up all across Brisbane. Picture: Steve Pohlner
If you’re planning to build a new home, experts are warning you have a narrow window – and when it closes, the wait times and the price tags will be unlike anything Australians have seen.
Australia’s construction sector is already running 35,000 workers short of what it needs at peak demand in one state alone – and that peak hasn’t arrived yet – with calls for a major overhaul of a political hot potato solution, migration.
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Queensland is facing a shortfall of about 35,000 construction workers next year. Picture: Liam Kidston.
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New research from Colliers and the Construction Skills Queensland Horizon 2032 report puts the tradie demand at its highest in 2027 to 2028 when the state’s construction industry will need 148,300 workers to service a $75 billion annual pipeline.
It currently has around 113,300 – short 35,000 – and every ordinary homeowner, renovator and developer in the state will be competing for the same shrinking pool of tradies soon.
Colliers Queensland Residential Director Andrew Scriven said the scale of the demand shock was “unlike anything the local industry had managed before”.
“The convergence of Olympic infrastructure and housing demand creates both urgency and opportunity,” he said.
Colliers Queensland Researcher Pragya Sharma said developers who acted early would be “better positioned to secure approvals, funding and construction capacity ahead of tightening constraints”, adding that the period leading up to 2027 “presents a key window of opportunity for developers and buyers”.
Greater Brisbane alone needs 40,000 new apartments built between 2021 and 2031 to keep pace with normal population growth – before a single Olympic worker lifts a tool.
The Athletes Village requires more than 10,500 bed spaces during the Games before converting to between 1,750 and 2,000 apartments.
Chart: Composition of permanent migration visa approvals by year. Red is skilled migrants, blue is family and other migrants. Source: IPA
The obvious answer – more construction skilled migrants – has run into a finding that’s likely to infuriate Australians who’ve been told for years that skilled migration is filling the gap.
Institute of Public Affairs senior fellow Dr Kevin You found that since 2012, there has not been a single year when genuine skilled permanent migrants made up the majority of approvals under the skilled migration stream.
In 2025, only 46 per cent of skilled permanent visa approvals were granted to migrants who had actually satisfied Home Affairs’ skills requirements.
The rest are dependants – colloquially known as “chain migrants” – of skilled migrants, and over five years to June 2025, 307,575 permanent migration visas were approved under the label “skilled” migration but given to people who are not themselves skilled workers.
“The official data reveals what Australians have long suspected: the government’s migration program is a complete rort, with less than half of the skilled migration program actually taken up by migrants with skills,” Dr You said.
Construction workers on the site of the former Woolworths supermarket demolished to make way for an apartment complex. Other states will begin to feel the pinch as Qld hoovers up builders. Picture: NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw.
“Federal governments, under both major parties, have misled Australians into thinking we have a skills-first migration system. We do not, which helps explain why no matter how much migration is increased, our workforce is not getting any more skilled or productive.”
Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn is among those calling for migration reform, saying Australia needs “an additional about 115,000 workers that we’re not going to necessarily get from the domestic workforce” to meet its housing targets.
“We need to build at least about 250,000 homes to meet population projections,” she told Sky News. “If we have the right number of people building, we will be able to build the homes that are necessary.”
CPG’s Castile project in Newstead is expected to begin construction September 2026.
Hutchinson Builders’ Jack Hutchinson, Councillor Penny Wolff, with CPG’s James MacGinley and Don O’Rorke at the launch of Monarch. Source: Supplied.
One firm making it through the bottleneck is Consolidated Properties Group whose $450m Monarch Residences in Toowong saw its final apartment sold for $4.1m – a benchmark that illustrates the premium now attached to completed stock.
CPG chairman Don O’Rorke said it took years of careful planning and market conviction.
“We are incredibly grateful to the outstanding team who helped bring Monarch Residences to life. A special thank you to Hutchinson Builders and their hardworking labour force for delivering a development of exceptional quality that our residents will be proud to call home for many years to come.”
The firm partners on all its projects with Hutchinson Builders – among the lucky few who are able to keep the pipeline flowing – announcing two more underway shortly – Gloriette in Yeerongpilly and Castile in Newstead.
For buyers and developers, the message from researchers is consistent: the cost of waiting is rising faster than the cost of acting – and the window may not be open again until the Olympics are here.
