Annexion Insights • Construction and Engineering
What Construction and Engineering Employers Are Struggling to Hire For in 2026
📅 9 September 2026 • Annexion Partners
Every year, occupations move in and out of shortage as the broader labor market shifts. But the roles that remain persistently scarce—regardless of changes elsewhere—are the clearest signals of where focused hiring efforts pay off. This year, two markets in our region have provided an unusually precise list of which Construction and Engineering roles fit that bill.
Hong Kong's forecast names the same roles, every year through 2030.
The Construction Industry Council's official Manpower Forecast, published in April 2026, names civil and structural engineering technicians, project coordinators, and surveying technicians among the technician-level roles it expects to stay in shortfall every single year through 2030 [1]. The overall technician-level gap is forecast to grow from 3,000 to 3,500 in 2026 to 6,500 to 7,000 by 2030.
A five-year forecast that names the same roles the whole way through is a useful kind of certainty. It gives firms a specific, dependable target to plan recruitment around, rather than a moving picture that changes every quarter.
A forecast that holds steady for five consecutive years is almost unheard of in hiring data. That kind of consistency offers valuable certainty for workforce planning.
Australia's shortage is easing everywhere except two roles.
Jobs and Skills Australia's 2025 Occupation Shortage List shows genuine, broad improvement: the share of occupations in shortage nationally fell from 36% in 2023 to 29% in 2025, a real and welcome easing across the economy [2].
Two roles didn't follow that trend. Jobs and Skills Australia's own Occupation Shortage Report names Civil Engineer and Surveyor specifically among the occupations that remain in shortage nationally, even as the broader market cooled [3]. When almost everything else is easing and a role isn't, that role has told you something the average statistic can't.
Broad market conditions are genuinely improving. Yet Civil Engineer and Surveyor roles remain exceptions—details that matter for strategic hiring decisions.
Singapore already told this story, with its own named roles.
We covered this pattern for Singapore earlier this year: our piece on Construction and Engineering hiring found BCA's own Skills Framework naming Design for Manufacturing and Assembly and Design for Maintainability as the specific emerging competencies to hire for, alongside a shift toward project managers and engineers who can manage collaborative delivery contracts, not just sign off on technical work. Hong Kong and Australia are now pointing to their own named roles, with the same underlying message.
What this means for hiring across the region
Roles that remain scarce amid shifting markets are precisely the ones worth prioritizing in your talent strategy. Candidates who fit these roles—a civil or structural engineering technician in Hong Kong, a Civil Engineer or Surveyor in Australia, or a DfMA-experienced engineer in Singapore—aren't just filling vacancies. They're occupying positions the data shows will stay critical, regardless of how the broader market evolves. That's a solid foundation for building a resilient hiring strategy.
Sources
[1] Construction Industry Council (Hong Kong), "Manpower Forecast for Hong Kong Construction Industry," April 2026 — cic.hk
[2] Jobs and Skills Australia, "Shortages ease but gaps persist in 2025 Occupation Shortage List" — jobsandskills.gov.au
[3] Jobs and Skills Australia, "Occupation Shortage Report, September quarter 2025," 15 December 2025 — jobsandskills.gov.au
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