Northern Queensland is in the box seat to capitalise on the state’s $14-billion a year transition to renewable energy, but the state will need an additional 27,000 construction workers to make it happen, as well as new housing and infrastructure in the regions. 

A CSIRO-Construction Skills Queensland report into the renewables runway shows the state needs to ramp up its renewable capacity from 3.8gW to 196gW, a 50-fold increase, by 2050.

Construction Skills Queensland director of research Robert Sobyra says there is no way, even with migration, that we can fill the construction jobs gap in the build out of the burgeoning sector.