Plagued by perceptions of its workplace culture and that its training compared poorly to university courses, Master Builders released a report on Friday that set the scene for a major shakeup.

It revealed it needed half a million workers by 2026, but it had to correct “the educational bias”, gender diversity, improve the perception of apprenticeships and capture the skills of migrants.

Attracting women to the sector was key. Only about 13 per cent of the industry’s workforce was female, but that disguised the real issue. In some occupation groups, like machine operators, it was more like 3 per cent.

“The low proportion of women in some occupation groups in the construction industry presents an opportunity to meet future workforce needs,” the report said.

“To harness the opportunity the barriers to female entry and retention in the industry need to be addressed. These include the perception of the physical demands of the work as well as unfavourable aspects of the workplace culture and its flexibility arrangements.

“Master Builders encourages the Government to think outside the narrow lens of gender targets for individual projects to identify options that will grow the pool of female and other under-represented workers in the industry.”

It said gender targets on government-funded projects would lead to employers competing over the same pool of workers and the poaching of female workers from the private sector to public sector jobs.

Master Builders chief executive Denita Wawn said nearly half of the required workforce (229,000) would be technician and trade roles and would enter the sector through apprenticeships.

“The nature of work in the industry is evolving due to increasing business specialisation, more offsite building, frequent job changes, technology integration, and complex regulatory requirements,” she said.