Australia needs more homes. It also needs significantly more people to build them.

Housing Industry Association modelling estimates that Australia is currently around 83,000 skilled workers short across residential construction. In Queensland, the challenge is particularly significant as housing competes with infrastructure, energy projects, data centres and preparations for the 2032 Games for the same workforce.

Finding and training more tradies is clearly part of the answer.

Australia has a housing shortage, strong population growth and a national target to build more homes.

On paper, it sounds like the perfect environment for the construction industry.

Yet construction companies continue to fail.

Queensland needs more housing, but much of that growth will not happen in established inner-city suburbs.

Increasingly, the heavy lifting is being done by growth corridors where there is room for new communities, infrastructure and housing to be delivered at scale.

When assessing a residential project, developers usually focus on land, construction, infrastructure and approvals.

One cost is often harder to see: time.

Australia’s housing challenge is not only about releasing land or approving new developments. It is also about whether the construction industry can turn that pipeline into completed homes quickly enough.