Balfour Beatty predicts a human free construction site by 2050 ⁰

Balfour Beatty has  published a paper called Innovation 2050: A Digital Future for the Infrastructure Industry, which predicts that the construction site of the future will be in stark contrast to what we see today. Most notably it will be human-free with work moved off-site with remote control of machinery and new materials and techniques exploited to improve cost, safety and efficiency. The report claims that technology has already revolutionised contemporary life to such an extent that it’s not so hard to imagine radical changes for construction not least the emergence of new roles and the requirement and evolution of new skills to support delivery of the future pipeline of construction projects.

In its latest paper Balfour Beatty sets out to examine the pace and rate of change within the industry, with digital technology the catalyst and driver to such change; change that is already happening and is inevitable.

Exploring how business strategies will change, productivity levels will improve, and required skills will evolve, the paper presents how technology will:

Help to bridge the skills gap by creating jobs, roles and industries that don’t yet exist and attracting younger generations to our industry, ultimately leading to a more agile workforce with new skills

Benefit all stakeholders through increased productivity, improved efficiency and increased value and quality while helping to bridge the skills gap and up-skill our workforce

Enable us to deliver projects for the public more efficiently and effectively through the use of such technology as Building Information Modelling, augmented and virtual reality, cloud data storage, telematics, drones and data analytics