The HIA Trades Report released today provides a quarterly review of the availability of skilled trades and any demand pressures on trades operating in the residential building industry, as measured by a survey of builders.

“The HIA Trades Availability Index recorded -0.47 in the final quarter of 2025, consistent with Australia experiencing an ongoing structural shortage of skilled trades,” added Mr Devitt.

“The expectation is that this shortage will deteriorate further as the volume of home building grows over the next year.

“Even with higher interest rates, home building activity is set to recover on the back of strong population growth, low unemployment rates and tight rental markets, while major construction projects around the Brisbane Olympics increasingly absorb excess labour from around the country.

“This shortage has seen more employers in the construction industry utilising pathways to access overseas skilled workers.

“There were more than 8,600 457/482 visa holders in Australia sponsored by the construction industry at the end of 2025, double the number from just a few years earlier and even more than during last decade’s mining boom.

“Western Australia and South Australia took in a disproportionate share of these arrivals, reflective of arguably the hottest home building markets in the nation.

“While these numbers were still less than one per cent of Australia’s total construction workforce, they represent a positive trend to increasing the size of the workforce.  

“This increase in employer-sponsored workers in construction reflects some home building businesses shifting towards direct employment as a means of gaining secure access to workers.

“Access to overseas labour isn’t a replacement to developing Australia’s own domestic workforce capacity. 
Shortages of shovel ready land also need to be addressed as the number one constraint on home building.

“While skilled trade and building material prices have more than doubled since the turn of the century, the price of the typical block of land has increased more than six-fold. 

“In the most recent year alone, skilled trade and building material prices were up by just 0.9 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively, while residential lot prices have re-accelerated to more than 10 per cent.

“Policymakers need to work to contain land costs and ensure Australia has the workforce to meet its current and future construction needs,” concluded Mr Devitt.

New South Wales and Victoria saw the most modest shortages of skilled trades in the December quarter 2025, as states saw slower recoveries in home building than others. This included regional New South Wales (-0.06), regional Victoria (-0.14), Melbourne (-0.36) and Sydney (-0.37). Regional South Australia has also seen dramatic improvement in trades availability (-0.15), while shortages persist in Adelaide (-0.50) and Perth (-0.68), and worsen in Brisbane (-0.90), regional Western Australia (-1.23) and regional Queensland (-1.29).

By trade, the most acute shortages remain in bricklaying (-1.02) and ceramic tiling (-0.88), followed by roofing (-0.75), carpentry (-0.62) and plastering (-0.54). Electrical was the only trade in ‘surplus’ with a reading of +0.05.

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