Upskilling and training project professionals in Engineering Construction industry is key to meeting demand increase

Association for Project Management (APM) is highlighting the need for the increased recruitment and upskilling of project professionals in the engineering construction industry (ECI) to address the rising demands and growing skills gap in the industry. This comes in response to newly published research by the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) which has revealed that demand for project managers in the ECI is likely to increase over the next five years.

The ECITB’s Labour Forecasting Tool (LFT) is a resource which provides insights into workforce numbers across regions and sectors, predicting trends and potential future demand for workers in the industry up to 2035. The LFT forecast has been updated, and it now indicates that peak demand for extra workers will be in 2030.

The tool estimates that there are 5,860 project managers working in the engineering construction industry as of 2025. The number of project managers in the ECI is predicted to increase by 22% in the next five years, reaching 7,170 by 2030. Factors that are attributed to this increased demand include the delays of some projects that now coincide with other planned activity, meaning that more work will need to be done in the next few years, along with an upcoming wave of possible retirements in key roles, requiring a new influx of talent to fill the gaps.

ECITB Chief Executive Andrew Hockey said: “These updates to the LFT give us the latest picture of future labour needs. It provides a strong evidence base to inform decision-making in helping address ECI skills shortages. The data from this tool shows how vital it is for the project profession to increase recruitment, whilst also continuing to train and upskill existing workers. By doing this, the profession has a fighting chance of closing the skills gap and of ensuring that the ECI has the skilled project managers it needs for the future.”

Professor Adam Boddison OBE, Chief Executive of APM, said: “It’s clear from this data that the demand for project managers within the engineering construction industry is only going to increase over the next few years. It is up to us within the profession to ensure that there are enough skilled project managers to fill these gaps, by increasing recruitment whilst also continuing to train and upskill existing workers. In doing so, we can ensure that the engineering construction industry is able to successfully deliver critical infrastructure and major projects successfully.”

State of the project profession

ECITB also shared data with us from their 2024 Workforce Census, which revealed more insights into the state of today’s project profession. The data showed there was an approximate total of 9,726 workers as of June 2024, distributed across the following occupations and sectors:

Occupation	#
Project Managers	4349
Planning Professionals	1455
Cost Engineers	544
Document controls Professionals	489
Project controls Professionals	432
Planning Managers	342
Project management Support	331
Project controls Managers	331
Estimating Professionals	302
Cost controls Professionals	127
Risk Managers	112
Project (IT) Managers	98
Estimating Managers	84
Document controls Managers	70
Risk Professionals	70
Project controls Apprentices and trainees	68
Project controls Support	65
Project (Commercial) Managers	59
Cost controls Managers	53
Project (Civil) Managers	46
Project management Apprentices and trainees	44
Project (EPC) Managers	39
Planning Engineers	33
Estimating Engineers	27
Project (Health and safety) Managers	23
Planning Apprentices and trainees	21
Other	110