The latest ABS data on Australian construction reveals an industry where work on current projects has slowed – but new projects are preparing to come online.
Australian construction has its ups and downs.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has just released the latest data on construction activity for the quarter ending December 2025. The numbers tell a story of a sector in transition.
The first key takeaway is that the completion of construction projects – judged by the value of work done and listed in the millions of dollars – has slowed since previous quarters.
The value of work done fell by 1.8 per cent (seasonally adjusted) to around $35.8 billion. This follows a more significant 6.6 per cent drop in the previous quarter (ending September 2025).
The slowdown is being driven heavily by a reduction in work being done in the public sector of 4.2 per cent.
The private sector showed signs of stabilising, however, with a marginal 0.3 per cent increase in work being completed, as shown in the below table.
If we plot this data in a graph and compare the most recent quarter with progress from the past nine years, it’s clear that the value of work done across the past two years has remained roughly even, with a spike in seasonally adjusted performance in the quarter to June 2025.
This follows a period from late 2019 to late 2023 when the value of work done steadily increased from below $27.5 billion to above $35 billion, as shown in the below graph.
Plotting the seasonally adjusted value of work done (the black line in the below graph) together with the value of work specifically for the public sector and the private sector, it’s clear that the figures have not significantly increased for some time.
The value of work done in both sectors has sat between $15 and $20 billion for at least the past three years.
Despite the drop in work being done, a slightly different story is told when looking at the value of new work projects.
The value of work commenced increased 18 per cent in original terms from the previous quarter.
Taking in the bigger picture of the data across the past eight-plus years, this amount is trending upwards – from $17.4 million in December 2017 to just over $33 million in the most recent quarter.
In the private sector, there was an increase to just over $21 million in original terms, while the public sector saw a decline to below $12 million.
Lessons for business
What lessons do these insights offer for engineering companies?
A deficiency in the utilisation of technology and a low capital-labour ratio have been identified as among the major influences on labour productivity.
Eric Bugeja CPEng, Chair of buildingSMART Australasia, previously told create that both a cause and an outcome of this lack of digitalisation is a highly fragmented, paper-based sector that regularly suffers costly rework issues and project delays.
“There is no shortage of digital tools and new technologies that promise to improve every stage of project delivery, but they’re not being employed,” he said.
Meanwhile, Martin Loosemore, a Distinguished Professor of Construction Management in the Faculty of Design and Society at the University of Technology Sydney, said that, as an increasing number of construction and engineering businesses begin to experiment with existing and emerging technologies, they will fail to fully capitalise on them.
These technologies include BIM, augmented and virtual reality, the Internet of Things, drone data and mobile sensing.
That’s because they will focus on the technology itself as opposed to the changes within the organisation – across knowledge, engagement and culture – needed to integrate the technology effectively.
“Technology is just a small part of the story,” Loosemore said. “Recent research into successful technology implantation offers business leaders a number of important lessons.”
All data sourced from: Australian Bureau of Statistics (December 2025) Engineering Construction Activity, Australia, ABS Website, accessed April 2026.
Check out the recently announced finalists for the Australian Construction Achievement Award 2026.
