India’s built environment faces a talent crunch as Viksit Bharat ambitions grow

A significant expansion is anticipated in India's built environment, though the industry faces a major hurdle in finding enough skilled personnel to support this growth. The built environment sector is experiencing a rapid transformation in its job roles, driven by shifts in infrastructure, real estate, sustainability, digitalisation, and AI, despite ongoing talent shortages in technical, managerial, and new fields. In a conversation with ET Digital, RICS South Asia's Managing Director, Ashwani Awasthi, shares insights on the growing talent shortage, the true meaning of being "industry-ready," and the crucial role of closing the education-workplace gap for India's Viksit Bharat 2047 goals. Edited excerpts.

Economic Times (ET): The built environment is often cited as one of India's largest employers and a major GDP contributor. How central is it to the Viksit Bharat 2047 goal, and what does that ambition actually demand on the ground?

Ashwani Awasthi (AA): The built environment is not just one part of the Viksit Bharat story; rather, it is the physical platform on which that story will be delivered.


India cannot become a developed economy by 2047 without world-class cities, housing, transport infrastructure, industrial facilities, logistics networks, digital infrastructure and resilient communities. The Economic Survey has already emphasised that India needs a continued step-up in infrastructure investment over the next two decades to sustain high growth and achieve Viksit Bharat.

However, the ambition is not simply about building more. It is about building better, faster, more efficiently, and more sustainably. That means we need professionals who can manage the whole lifecycle of an asset from feasibility, valuation and financing through design, procurement and construction to operation, refurbishment and eventual decommissioning.

There is a huge opportunity ahead. NITI Aayog estimates that 86% of India's building floor space is yet to be built, with commercial floor space expected to increase four- to seven-fold and residential demand to double by 2070.

So, if Viksit Bharat is the destination, built-environment capability is one of the critical engines that will get us there.

ET: Infrastructure and real estate investment has scaled sharply over the past decade. Is that growth being matched by the availability of skilled professionals to design, cost, deliver and manage these projects?

AA: No, and this is one risk we need to take much more seriously. India has been very successful at creating educational capacity and producing graduates. The problem is that the growth in project complexity and professional capability requirements has moved faster than the development of industry-ready talent.

The gap exists across the project lifecycle. We need people who understand not only engineering or construction but also cost, contracts, procurement, project controls, risk, digital tools, sustainability, asset management, and commercial decision-making.

The issue is acute in specialist areas. NSDC's sector analysis identifies significant shortages across both highly skilled and large-volume construction profiles, including welders, fitters, bar-benders, scaffolders, and carpenters.

At the professional level, the challenge is different: we have graduates, but not enough professionals who can immediately take responsibility for complex projects.

That is why the industry needs to think beyond recruitment and invest much more seriously in work-integrated learning, apprenticeships, professional qualifications, and continuous upskilling.

ET: Construction and real estate are changing with digitalisation, green building norms and global capital. How is that changing the kind of talent the sector needs compared with even five or ten years ago?

AA: The biggest change is that built-environment professionals can no longer operate in functional silos. Five or ten years ago, you could be a good quantity surveyor, project manager, engineer or facilities professional largely within your own discipline.

Today, that is not enough. A modern professional needs a combination of domain expertise, digital capability, commercial understanding, sustainability literacy, and data skills.

For example, a quantity surveyor increasingly needs to understand BIM, data analytics, automated measurement, and whole-life costing. A project manager needs to understand digital project controls, carbon, ESG requirements, and increasingly AI-enabled workflows. A real estate professional needs to understand not only property fundamentals but also capital markets, climate risk, technology, and changing occupier behaviour.

This will accelerate further because AI and digitalisation are changing the nature of work itself. The government has also recognised that automation, AI, digitalisation and climate action are creating demand for new and evolving skills.

So, the future professional needs to be T-shaped: deep expertise in one discipline, but broad understanding of the technologies and issues that influence the entire asset lifecycle.

ET: Where are the sharpest shortages right now, and which roles are hardest to fill?

AA: I would divide the shortage into three layers. First, would be specialist technical skills. There are shortages in areas such as experienced quantity surveyors, cost managers, project controls specialists, BIM/digital professionals, planners, contract and commercial managers, sustainability specialists and facilities/asset-management professionals.

Second, is around experienced project leadership. India has many young engineers and graduates, but there is a much smaller pool of people who have actually delivered large, complex projects and can manage cost, time, risk, contracts, stakeholders, and quality simultaneously.

Third is the emerging skills. This is where I think the shortage will become most pronounced, people who combine built-environment knowledge with carbon measurement, whole-life carbon assessment, ESG, climate resilience, data analytics, AI and digital twins.

ET: Employers frequently say candidates aren't "industry-ready". In the built environment specifically, what does that phrase mean, and how wide is the gap?

AA: An industry-ready professional is someone who can move from the classroom to the project environment with minimal handholding. He/ She not only knows the theory but understand how to apply it in the real world.

For a built-environment graduate, industry readiness should mean being able to read drawings, understand specifications, work with project data, use relevant digital tools, understand contracts and procurement, communicate with different stakeholders, identify commercial and delivery risks and make professional judgements.

It also means understanding that a project is not simply about constructing a building. It has commercial, legal, environmental, operational and human dimensions.

The gap therefore isn't necessarily a failure of universities. It is partly a disconnect between what education traditionally rewards and what industry actually requires.

The solution to this challenge is to build a much stronger bridge between education and industry through live projects, meaningful internships and apprenticeships, greater involvement of industry practitioners in teaching, exposure to professional standards, and assessments that test practical application and problem-solving, not just theoretical knowledge.

ET: Sustainability and ESG are reshaping how buildings are financed and delivered. Do we have enough professionals who can actually cost, deliver and certify green and low-carbon projects at scale?

AA: No, we do not have enough professionals, and I would regard this as one of the most significant capability risks facing India's built environment.

India has made considerable progress in green buildings and sustainability frameworks. But there is a difference between understanding sustainability as a principle and being able to embed it into project economics and delivery.

We need professionals who can answer practical questions, for example, like what is the carbon impact of this design? What is the embodied carbon of the materials? What does a lower-carbon option cost?

This requires sustainability to move from being a specialist ESG function to a mainstream professional competency.

The next stage for India is therefore not simply more green buildings. It is developing enough professionals across the value chain to measure, cost, procure, deliver, and operate low-carbon assets at scale.

ET: India produces very large numbers of engineering and management graduates every year. Why does the sector still struggle to find people it can deploy without significant retraining?

AA: The sector struggles because the degree received by these graduates is an educational qualification and may not necessarily reflect their professional capability.

The built environment is particularly dependent on practical knowledge. You learn a great deal by being on projects, understanding how drawings change, how contractors behave, how claims arise, how costs move, how approvals work, how risks materialise and how decisions made at design stage affect operations years later. There is therefore a missing bridge between campus and project site.

ET: RICS has worked in Indian built environment education for over two decades, including setting up India's first School of Built Environment with Amity. What problem were you trying to solve then, and how has it evolved?

AA: When we started, the fundamental problem was very simple: India was producing engineers and graduates, but there was a lack of specialised, industry-oriented education for the built environment.

RICS recognised that the sector needed professionals who understood the built environment as a profession and a business, not simply as an engineering discipline.

That led to the establishment of the RICS School of Built Environment with Amity University. The school was created in response to a clear industry need for specialised built-environment education, with strong backing from leading real estate, construction and infrastructure companies.

Given the size of the built environment sector and the scale of professionals needed, we continue to solve the earlier problem by engaging with more education institutions, but at the same time, we see the problem has evolved.

Fifteen years ago, the question was: "How do we create enough qualified professionals?" Today, the question is: "How do we create professionals capable of delivering the future built environment?" This is a much bigger challenge.