Construction Jobs

Imagine being able to work and grow your skills in a busy and varied construction scene – then in half an hour or less, be relaxing on a beach, hiking through beautiful native bush, pounding down a mountain bike track or just chilling with friends in your back garden over a fine New Zealand craft beer or wine.

That’s what you can look forward to when you bring your skills to New Zealand.

Construction jobs

02:25

Play

View transcript

Construction Jobs

Rolf Sigaard:

We operate in the infrastructure industry so we look after the critical infrastructure assets of our customers in the areas of welding, water, telecommunications and facilities management.

People say to us that they think we sort of are one big family and we like the term. We put a lot of emphasis on safety, with the aim of working out safely everyday and obviously get our people safely home every night.

Public business in New Zealand are quite different from the way the businesses operate in the US and UK and other major overseas markets, in that generally businesses here are a lot smaller, so that does require us to be a lot more nimble and do more with less.

Also business here is very much based on relationships, New Zealand businesses do have a tradition for being quite innovative, often again it is about being resourceful.

At the moment the skills we are struggling to find in the domestic market are very strong civil project managers, to work say on the Christchurch project but also other projects we are doing. Also there is a severe shortage of telecommunications people like from designers draughting people, to field technicians and managers.

We support our new immigrants in other ways, I think one of the most significant ones I can think of is how well they’ve been embraced by our people, the examples of people being picked up from the airport late at night, brought to the new home, people stocking the fridge, donating furniture, taking people on picnics, we have BBQs at the depot, I think that’s quite an awesome support that our people provide and hopefully helps our new people, to settle down a bit quicker and feel part of the local community.

I think people come to New Zealand for number of reasons, generally people come here for quality of life, but also for career development, the standard of living is a treat for a lot of our people, and also the safe environment.

For me personally I’ve always offered the opportunity to embrace a new lifestyle, career development, and move the family out in environment I thought was really good for kids, and its been a outstanding experience, you know how we’ve been received, how the local community been a part of how they operate and just the whole quality of life its just been tremendous so, a very positive experience.

End

View all videos

An industry set for growth

Construction is the fifth largest sector in New Zealand’s economy, employing just over a quarter of a million people. 

Total construction value in 2019 reached $43.2b. Residential building is the largest contributor to the sector, accounting for 55% of construction activity in 2019. The remainder is split roughly equally between non-residential construction, and infrastructure.

Employment in construction has grown consistently since 2012. While the immediate outlook is weak, underlying factors will support a resumption of that growth. They include a severe shortage of residential housing, and heavy government investment in infrastructure to modernise existing assets, prepare for climate change and to help grow the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Growth nationwide, across the industry

Around 4,800 new jobs a year will be created in construction in the years to 2028 according to the government’s medium to long term employment outlook. Many of those jobs will have to be filled by people like you, from overseas.

The majority of jobs will be in residential building. Many of these jobs will be in New Zealand’s largest centres of population – Auckland, followed by Christchurch and Wellington along with  the Waikato region  (main city Hamilton) and Bay of Plenty (Tauranga).

The fastest growing sector will be infrastructure. This will be dominated by transport, water and subdivision projects and strongest in Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty.

Medium-term employment prospects | MBIE

Ongoing skill shortages

Regardless of short-term issues, New Zealand’s construction employers are having ongoing difficulty recruiting certain skills for their projects.

A major international recruiting agency reports that “69% of employers say it is ‘very difficult’ or ‘hard’ to recruit Senior Managers. This is followed closely by Project Managers and Construction Managers (both 66%), Estimators (56%), Quantity Surveyors (55%), Site Managers (52%) and Project Engineers (50%).

“At the other end of the scale, 91% of employers say it is ‘easy’ or ‘manageable’ to recruit Cadets and entry-level candidates.”

Is your profession on the green list?

There are many construction roles currently on INZ's fast-tracked Residency Green list.

The Green List | Immigration New Zealand

Fact file

In 2021 New Zealand’s total construction value is just under $37b, around 6% of GDP,  and is expected to reach $42b in 2020.

Construction provides lots of jobs - employing around 250,000 directly and responsible for another 200,000 jobs in ‘construction-related’ occupations.

Most construction jobs are in the most populated areas of New Zealand - Auckland, Waikato (Hamilton), Bay of Plenty (Tauranga-Rotorua), Wellington, Christchurch and Napier-Hastings.

Construction in all regions (except Canterbury) is expected to grow consistently to 2023. Auckland by 26%, Waikato/Bay of Plenty by 22% and Wellington by 25%. The ‘Rest of New Zealand’ is expected to grow by 10% while opportunities in Canterbury will decline as the rebuild winds down.

Residential building is the largest subsector, accounting for 59% of total construction value in 2017, followed by non-residential building (22%) and Infrastructure (19%).

Residential dwelling consents are expected to exceed historic highs, reaching 43,000 by 2023.

Professional registration

Depending on your occupation, you may be required to register with a professional body in order to get a job and visa. In any case, getting a visa may be more straightforward if you are able to obtain professional registration in New Zealand.

More details are on the Immigration New Zealand website.

Occupational registration | Immigration NZ