Trades tighten as work increases

The availability of skilled tradespeople has worsened across Australia as home building picks up again, a new report has revealed.

The latest HIA Trades Report shows that bricklayers, tilers and carpenters are in highest demand – and so, conversely least available.

HIA Senior Economist Tom Devitt said the HIA Trades Availability Index was measured at -0.48 in the September quarter 2025, a deterioration from the -0.40 reading in the previous quarter. The Index is a measure between +2.00 and -2.00, with a positive reading indicating easier access to skilled trades and vice-versa.

“A number of states were already seeing improving home building activity on the back of population growth, tight labour markets, recovering household incomes and relatively more affordable land”, Devitt noted, adding that with three interest rate cuts in the back pocket, New South Wales and Victoria look to be joining the party.

“With recovering home building pipelines on top of significant volumes of renovations, non-residential and public infrastructure work ongoing across the country, demand for skilled trades will only increase.

“The softening in trades price inflation may also be short lived as a result, with trades prices having already increased by double the broader rate of wage growth across the economy since 2019.”

The deterioration in trades availability was broad-based, with bricklaying seeing the worst decline in the Index. This has been driven by the increase in the volume of new homes commencing construction, particularly in Western Australia.

Devitt said the increase in home building commencements also drove a significant increase in the price of site preparation trades, up by 8.4 per cent in the most recent 12 months.

“Without attracting more skilled workers into Australia from overseas, and further developing our existing workforce capacity, the shortage of skilled tradespeople is only expected to worsen”, he concluded.

By region, trades shortages continue to be most apparent outside of Sydney and Melbourne, though the situation deteriorated even in these markets, potentially reflective of homebuilding activity finally improving.

Shortages were most acute in regional Queensland (-0.92) and Perth (-0.89), followed by regional Western Australia (-0.69), Adelaide (-0.60), regional South Australia (-0.55), regional New South Wales (-0.49), Brisbane (-0.48), regional Victoria (-0.46), Sydney (-0.40) and Melbourne (-0.21).

By trade, bricklaying (-1.09) remained in the most acute shortage, followed by ceramic tiling (-0.86), carpentry (-0.74) and roofing (-0.66), while electrical trades were in equilibrium (+0.02), and plumbing (-0.20) and site preparation (-0.22) were in modest shortage.

*The HIA Trades Report 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.