Skills Needs of the Civil Engineering Sector in the European Union Countries: Current Situation and Future Trends

Abstract

The construction sector has always occupied a strategic place in the European economy. The European construction industry suffered during the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, and today the sector is undergoing a recovery process. Among all the construction subsectors, civil engineering has the highest growth rate. Currently, the sector has to face profound industrial changes emerging with digital transformations (Industry 4.0), sustainability, climate change and energy efficiency. To promote the growth of the civil engineering sector and accelerate the recovery, we need to create a highly qualified and competent workforce that can handle the challenges coming up with the technological progress and global competitiveness. The main condition to achieve this capable workforce is to define the expected evolution of skills requirements. For that purpose, our work focuses on identifying current and near-future key skills required by the civil engineering occupations. To achieve this, we developed an automated sectoral database for the current and near-future skills requirements of the selected professional profiles. It is our belief that this sectoral database is a fundamental framework that will guide the sector through the future changes. We also believe that our research can be used as a key tool for construction companies, policy-makers, academics and training centers to develop well-designed and efficient training programs for upskilling and reskilling the workforce.