The sector that cannot staff itself
New Zealand’s construction industry is the country’s third-largest employer, with approximately 308,500 workers as of June 2023. It grew its workforce at 6.3% annually over the decade to 2023, more than double the economy-wide rate. And yet 46% of construction business owners were still reporting difficulty recruiting tradespeople.
The National Construction Pipeline Report 2025 projects activity returning to growth from 2026, with infrastructure spend climbing to $19.6 billion by 2030. Auckland is forecast to account for 44% of all building consents, while Waikato and Bay of Plenty alone expect almost 37,000 dwelling consents between 2025 and 2030. The current downturn has given the sector a brief reprieve from its staffing crisis. That window is closing.
So where does the next generation of builders come from? The honest answer is that the industry has barely tried to find out, because it has spent decades drawing from the same narrow demographic.
Three percent on the tools
Women make up just 15.8% of the construction workforce, second to last among all sectors. But that figure flatters the reality, because most women in construction work in office and management roles. On the tools, just 3% of practising tradies are women, according to BCITO data from October 2025.
The trajectory is positive. Women in construction grew 157% over the decade to 2023, outpacing the 75.3% growth in male workers. In 2025, BCITO reported that 6% of new apprentices were women, up from less than 1% five years earlier, with numbers nearly quadrupling from 52 to 205.
But 205 apprentices in a 308,500-person industry is not a pipeline. It is a trickle. BCITO has set a target of 30% women in trades by 2040. At the current rate of change, that target is fantasy.
Churn makes the problem worse
Recruitment is only half the equation. In 2025, BCITO cited research from the New Zealand Chinese Building Industry Association showing that more than a third of construction workers have been in their roles less than a year, and just 6% have stayed more than five. That level of churn means the industry is constantly refilling a leaking bucket, burning money on recruitment and retraining while losing institutional knowledge.
Building a female workforce pipeline into a sector with that kind of retention problem is like pouring water into a sieve. You need to fix both ends simultaneously.
The barriers are embarrassingly cheap to fix
The obstacles women face on construction sites are not cultural abstractions requiring decade-long attitude shifts. They are portaloos, period products, and PPE that fits. In October 2025, BCITO launched its Actions Speak Louder initiative, providing free period products, sanitary bins, women’s injury-prevention programmes, discounted portaloos, and workwear to women apprentices and their employers.
Greg Durkin, Director of BCITO, said in October 2025: “Demand for new construction is going to come back, and it’s essential we have enough qualified tradies to meet that demand.”
The fact that these interventions are only arriving now tells you everything about how seriously the sector has taken the problem.
Demand is there if anyone bothers to look
Women’s Shed Queenstown, a registered charity founded by Alex van Dam, has attracted more than 400 women to carpentry workshops since August 2023. The initiative started after a social media post gauging interest went viral. Van Dam told the Otago Daily Times in April 2025: “My favourite part is watching women go from nervous excitement when first picking up a tool to achieving mastery.”
Four hundred women in Queenstown alone, a town of 50,000 people, voluntarily signing up to learn carpentry. The latent interest exists. The industry just has not built a pathway from curiosity to career.
In September 2023, Fletcher Living completed what was described as the first Auckland home built by an all-women team of 40 tradies at Whenuapai. Then-project lead Aurelie Le Gall said at the time: “It’s very hard to find women who are already in the industry, highly experienced, who can come in and do things from day one.” That is the self-reinforcing trap. The pool stays shallow because nobody invests in deepening it.
The commercial case is already settled
This is not a diversity story. It is a capacity story. Construction firms that cannot staff their projects lose contracts, miss deadlines, and watch margins evaporate. With infrastructure spend heading for $19.6 billion by 2030 and the residential recovery gathering pace, the sector’s workforce constraints will become commercial constraints within two years.
The industry has a stated goal of 30% women in trades by 2040. It currently sits at 3% on the tools and is adding 205 apprentices a year. Either the pace of change accelerates dramatically, or construction firms will spend the next decade bidding up the same insufficient labour pool while leaving half the country’s potential workforce on the sideline. The fix is not mysterious. The failure to act on it is.
Sources
- BCITO: Actions Speak Louder (2025-10-08)
- Otago Daily Times: Building skills and bonds (2025-04-12)
- 1News: Auckland building project first to be built by all-women team (2023-09-03)