This is the best-evidenced workforce shortage in the whole section, and the most commonly misread.
The number everyone quotes and the one that matters
The Associated General Contractors of America and NCCER surveyed around 1,400 firms for their 2025 Workforce Survey. The headline finding travels widely.
Ninety-two percent of firms that are hiring report difficulty filling positions. Forty-five percent already have projects running late because of workforce shortages.
The findings underneath it travel much less, and they change the diagnosis.
Fifty-seven percent cite a lack of skills and qualifications among candidates.
Forty-one percent cite a lack of required credentials.
Forty-eight percent report new hires failing to show up or quickly quitting.
Nearly half of firms are losing people they already hired, in the first days. That is not a labour supply problem, and no amount of recruitment fixes it.
Read together, the survey describes two different problems wearing one label. One is a genuine skills and credential gap, which training addresses. The other is that people arrive and leave, which training does not.
This is exactly the distinction the hub article on skills gaps argues for, and here it is visible inside a single dataset.
What the direction covers
The scope: costing, scheduling, contracts, site management, safety and project delivery.
Four areas.
Planning and scheduling. Sequencing, critical path, resource loading and the realism of the programme.
Cost management. Estimating, cost control, change and forecasting.
Contracts and commercial. Forms of contract, risk allocation, variations and claims.
Site delivery. Logistics, quality, coordination between trades, and safety.
Why the retention half is the harder half
The 48 percent figure deserves its own treatment, because the industry's usual response to it is to describe young people as unwilling to work, and the evidence supports a more uncomfortable reading.
Four factors that are within employers' control.
The first week determines whether someone stays. Arriving on site with no induction beyond a signature, nobody assigned to them, unclear expectations and no idea who to ask is a common experience and a predictable cause of not returning.
Conditions vary enormously and are visible immediately. Welfare facilities, treatment by supervisors, whether the site is organised or chaotic. People compare and leave.
Work is frequently insecure and mobile. Short engagements, travel and uncertainty about the next job make the sector a weaker proposition than employers assume when comparing themselves to other options for the same person.
Supervisor behaviour is decisive and untrained. Supervisors are usually promoted for being good at the trade, with no training in managing people, and they are the single biggest influence on whether a new starter stays.
The workforce conclusion is direct: an organisation that invests only in recruitment while 48 percent of new hires leave immediately is refilling a bucket with a hole. Training supervisors and fixing the first week is cheaper and faster than any recruitment campaign.
Where this sits in the domain
Construction engineering and management is the fifth of six directions in Astra Trainer's engineering and built world domain, connecting to structural engineering for temporary works and buildability, and to architecture and building science for the quality of what actually gets built.
Because the retention finding above is about supervision as much as technical skill, partners frequently scope it alongside the leadership world in the consumer catalogue for the people-management layer. Lessons are five minutes and work on a phone, which matters on a site where nobody is sitting at a desk. You can see the six directions here.
Project controls, where the money is lost
The construction manager role is growing fast. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment growing about 9 percent between 2024 and 2034, three times the average occupation, with roughly 46,800 openings a year, which is a large absolute number for this section.
What those people mostly need is project controls capability, and it is thinner than the job titles suggest.
Estimating accuracy. Most overruns are decided before anyone is on site, in an estimate built on optimistic assumptions or incomplete information.
Programme realism. A schedule that assumes everything goes right is not a schedule. Sequencing errors and unrealistic durations are visible before work starts to anyone trained to look.
Change control. Variations that are instructed informally and priced later are the most common source of commercial dispute in the industry.
Early warning. Knowing a project is going wrong at 20 percent complete rather than at 80 percent. This is the single highest-value skill in the discipline and it is mostly judgement applied to progress data.
Risk allocation. Understanding what the contract actually says about who carries which risk, which is frequently discovered during the dispute rather than before signing.
Safety is not a training module
Construction consistently has one of the highest rates of fatal injury of any industry sector, and this section treats that plainly.
The principal hazard categories are well known: falls from height, being struck by moving objects and vehicles, trapping and collapse, electricity, and long-latency health hazards including respirable silica, asbestos in existing buildings, noise and vibration.
Three things worth stating for anyone planning workforce development.
Competence is a legal duty, not a good practice. Construction regulation in most jurisdictions places duties on clients, designers, principal contractors and contractors, including ensuring that people are competent for the work they are given.
Design decisions create site risk. Designers have duties in many jurisdictions precisely because a hazard designed out is a hazard nobody has to manage. This connects directly to the structural and building science directions.
Health hazards kill more people than accidents, later. Occupational disease from dust, asbestos and other exposures has a long latency, which makes it easy to under-prioritise and is the reason many older workers are ill.
Training builds understanding and supports recognised competence schemes. It does not substitute for site induction, task-specific competence, statutory training or supervision, and no article can carry that weight.
The roles, named
Construction managers and project managers. The growth role.
Site managers and supervisors. Where retention is decided.
Quantity surveyors and cost managers.
Planners and schedulers. Small population, large influence.
Commercial managers and contract administrators.
Health and safety advisers with construction competence.
Temporary works coordinators. A defined role with real responsibility.
Digital construction and BIM coordinators, where the information model meets site reality.
Who can be trained into it
Trades moving into supervision. The most common and most under-supported progression in the industry. They know the work and are given no preparation for managing people, which is exactly the gap the 48 percent figure points at.
Site staff into planning and controls. They know what actually takes how long, which is the input a planner most needs and most lacks.
Administrators into contract and commercial roles. A real route that is rarely made explicit.
Ex-military personnel. Logistics, coordination and operating under pressure transfer directly to site management.
Engineers into construction management. Need the commercial and contractual layers, which engineering education omits almost entirely.
People returning to work or changing sector. Given that credentials are cited by 41 percent of firms as a barrier, structured routes to recognised credentials are a direct intervention on a stated problem.
Construction is high-hazard and competence is a legal duty. Construction work is governed by regulation placing duties on clients, designers and contractors, including ensuring competence, providing information and managing risk. Many tasks require specific statutory training, certification or authorisation, and site access requires induction. Asbestos, respirable crystalline silica and work at height carry particular legal regimes. Training builds understanding and supports recognised competence schemes. It does not confer any card, certification, statutory training or authorisation to perform site work.
What to take from this
The 92 percent figure describes difficulty hiring. The 48 percent figure describes losing people already hired, and only the first is a training problem.
Supervisor capability and the quality of the first week are the two highest-return interventions available, and both are cheaper than recruitment.
Construction manager demand is genuinely large, around 46,800 US openings a year, and what those people need most is project controls capability.
Most overrun is decided before anyone reaches site, in the estimate and the programme.
And credentials are cited by 41 percent of firms as a barrier, which makes structured routes to recognised credentials an intervention on a problem the industry has already named.
What does the AGC survey actually show?
Ninety-two percent of hiring firms struggle to fill positions and 45 percent have projects running late. Underneath that, 57 percent cite lack of skills, 41 percent lack of credentials, and 48 percent report new hires not showing up or quickly quitting.
Why does the 48 percent figure matter most?
Because it is a retention problem rather than a supply problem, and recruitment does not fix it. First-week experience, site conditions, job security and untrained supervisors are all within employers' control.
Where is overrun actually created?
Before anyone is on site, in optimistic estimates and unrealistic programmes. The highest-value skill in project controls is knowing a project is going wrong at 20 percent complete rather than 80.
How large is the construction management shortage?
US construction manager employment is projected to grow about 9 percent to 2034, three times the average occupation, with roughly 46,800 openings a year.
Who converts into these roles?
Trades moving into supervision, who are almost never prepared for managing people; site staff into planning, who know what actually takes how long; and ex-military personnel into site management.