New Paper Predicts Construction Site of 2050

Balfour Beatty recently published its paper “Innovation 2050: A Digital Future for the Infrastructure Industry.”

The construction site of 2050 will be in stark contrast to what we see today – it will be human-free with work moved offsite, remote control of machinery and new materials and techniques exploited to improve cost, safety and efficiency.

While Balfour Beatty’s prediction for a human-free construction site may seem far-fetched, technology has already revolutionized 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 the 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 the workforce
• Enable the industry to deliver projects for the public more efficiently and effectively through the use of such technology as Building Information Modeling, augmented and virtual reality, cloud data storage, telematics, drones and data analytics

For details, visit balfourbeatty.com/2050.