Bricklayer Shortage in the ACT: Why Qualified Trade Workers Are in Short Supply in Canberra

News · 2026-08-24 · 4 min read

Canberra keeps building upwards, but the trade workforce behind that growth is getting smaller. At present, only seven people are training as bricklayers across the whole ACT region. Over the same period, the construction workforce grew by 10 per cent while apprentice numbers fell by 20 per cent. The result is a trade under heavy strain, kept going by a small group of tradespeople who are well beyond the age at which most of their peers start to retire.

Local industry bodies see this as a crisis. For skilled migrants deciding where to build a trade career, it looks different: a market with real, lasting demand and surprisingly few obstacles to getting started. This article explains the situation in clear sections.

No licence, no qualification check

The most important fact for any tradesperson is this: bricklaying is not a licensed occupation in the ACT. Anyone may legally lay bricks on a residential or commercial site without showing proof of a qualification.

Lynne Sheffield is a 30-year industry veteran and the founder of Quality Training in Construction. On the sites she visits, she has seen the results build up: uneven workmanship from people who were never trained properly.

Why the gap helps trained workers

This weakness has two sides. For the industry, it is a real quality issue. For a migrant tradesperson who does have formal qualifications and genuine site experience, it means entering a market where well-trained bricklayers are noticeably scarce and highly valued. Daniel Swan, who has operated his own bricklaying business in Canberra for more than two decades, is not short of work. What he lacks is dependable people to put on the trowel.

Three long-term causes of the shortage

This is not a short dip in the building cycle. Three structural problems are adding to each other:

Apprentice training depends on a weak sector. Most bricklaying apprentices learn on residential projects, and residential building in the ACT is currently slow. Commercial and infrastructure work, including the territory's light rail expansion, keeps labour demand high, but fewer home-building jobs means fewer employers prepared to take on a four-year apprenticeship.
Keeping apprentices is harder than finding them. Geordan Murray of the Housing Industry Association notes that many more apprentices begin than complete. The physical load of the work, plus apprentices spending too much time on general labouring instead of building trowel skills, causes many to leave before they become truly productive on site.
Experienced workers are retiring. On sites such as Swan's, tradespeople over 40 are standard, not unusual. Without new entrants, whether trained apprentices or skilled migrants, their know-how leaves with them and is not replaced.

Then layer the ACT government's pledge to deliver 30,000 new homes by 2030 over these problems, and the figures stop working. A housing target that large cannot be met with seven apprentices in training.

How to assess Canberra as a destination

For qualified bricklayers and other construction trades considering Australia, Canberra's shortage is a good example of how to read a labour market. Focus on these signals:

Lasting demand, not a brief spike. It is driven by government infrastructure commitments and long-term housing targets rather than one project.
A skills gap employers openly admit. This usually leads to quicker hiring, greater willingness to sponsor and less competition for positions.
Few regulatory barriers to entry. This can shorten the time between arriving and earning. It also means you must be ready to prove your qualifications and experience clearly yourself, because the local system will not do that screening for you.

None of this makes bricklaying easy. As Canberra's own apprentices will confirm, it is demanding physical work. For someone who already has the training and the stamina, though, a market this short of workers is where a skilled migration pathway tends to deliver results most quickly.

Preparing your application

If you are a tradesperson looking at jobs in Australia for Pakistanis, get your documents organised early: an English CV that lists your qualifications and site experience in detail, an English test (IELTS or PTE) if your visa pathway requires one, and a police character certificate if a police certificate is requested. Before travelling, complete Pakistan's emigration formalities and confirm current requirements with the Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment.

Final assessment

Canberra's construction boom has revealed a trade that local training cannot keep pace with. That is a serious issue for the ACT construction industry and a real opportunity for skilled tradespeople considering Australia as their next step. Markets do not become this short of workers by chance, and they seldom remain this way for long.

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