CONSTRUCTION
The debate too often starts with replacement. I believe the better starting point is to ask which pressures technology can remove from scarce skilled teams a nd where it can give them clearer information, | stronger controls, and more time for the work that requires judgement.
One of the construction sector’ s biggest challenges is not job loss to automation. In fact, the sector is hiring more and building at a scale it hasn’ t seen in years, having added 130 000 new jobs in the third quarter of last year alone – close to half of all new employment created nationally.
When the Project Management Institute projected this year that there will be a 57 % shortfall in construction project professionals across sub-Saharan Africa by 2035, it named building information modelling, digital twins, and AI as the levers most likely to close the efficiency gap.
In this environment, AI and automation become support systems and effort multipliers. The businesses gaining an edge are using technology to redesign work, moving scarce engineers and site teams off routine tasks and onto the decisions that require training, experience, and accountability.
The issue is instead a shortage of workers in key fields. Nearly four in ten respondents to the latest Critical Skills Survey Report struggled to fill engineering roles in 2025, with only one engineer available for every 3 166 South Africans. The sector also faces a critical artisan shortage, with 22 % of companies struggling to fill those positions.
AI is a capability multiplier, not a substitute
AI is already proving useful around construction, particularly in drafting rooms and project offices, where data-rich processes are easier to digitise and scale. On a project, that means AI can help teams plan and sequence work, flag design clashes before they reach site, track progress against programme, catch likely rework early, and move the surrounding paperwork faster, from procurement checks and document trails to payment certificates and project records that would otherwise sit across diaries, spreadsheets, drawings, inboxes, and finance platforms.
One pattern I have seen repeatedly on large projects is that delays often begin in the information surrounding the physical work. An approval sits too long, a drawing is outdated, a record is missing, or a payment certificate cannot move because the supporting documents are scattered across different systems. Technology creates value when it clears these blockages before they slow the people delivering the project.
Outcomes will continue to improve as the technology and the sector’ s understanding of it continue to develop. Engineers will spend fewer hours reconciling records by hand, project managers will spot earlier when cost, programme, or documentation begins to drift, and site teams will face fewer hold-ups from missing approvals, duplicated checks, or delayed certification.
For construction companies under pressure to deliver more with scarce skills, AI can empower those doing the work by clearing and strengthening the systems around them. These advances will support the construction and infrastructure sector’ s biggest advantage: its people. �
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