Residential construction demands slow in British Columbia to 2035, while short-term non-residential growth is expected to be significant

OTTAWA, Ontario, July 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Construction activity in British Columbia is expected to moderate over the coming decade, with declines projected in both the residential and non-residential sectors to 2035.

BuildForce Canada today released its Construction and Maintenance Looking Forward highlight reports for the residential and non-residential construction sectors in British Columbia, covering the forecast period from 2026 to 2035. Funded in part by the Government of Canada's Sectoral Workforce Solutions Program, the reports call for slowing activity in the province’s residential sector across most of the decade, while its non-residential sector is projected to rise to a near-term peak before subsiding into 2030 and beyond.

Residential construction investment is projected to trend downward across the forecast period, driven by weakening demand for new-home construction. Housing starts, which peaked in 2023 amid elevated levels of international migration, are expected to decline sharply in the earliest years of the forecast period before returning to below-historical levels for the period from 2029 to 2033. Most affected during this period are starts for single-detached units.

By 2035, residential construction employment is projected to contract by 13% compared to 2025 levels, with employment losses exclusive to new-home construction activity.

Non-residential construction activity, meanwhile, enters the forecast period at an elevated level, driven by a significant volume of major engineering and industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) building projects. Investment is projected to rise to a peak in 2027, as work continues on a range of significant mining, energy, and infrastructure projects – including four federal “nation-building” projects – before declining into the early 2030s as many of these projects conclude.

Investment in ICI buildings construction is expected to grow through the near term, supported by a significant number of projects planned and underway in the healthcare and education sectors, including the Richmond Hospital expansion and the new acute care tower at the University Hospital of Northern British Columbia. Although activity slows on many of these projects after 2027, investment levels remain elevated to the end of the forecast period. Growth in ICI buildings construction is further sustained by demand for industrial and commercial buildings.

By 2035, non-residential construction employment is projected to increase by 5% compared to 2025 levels, with significant gains expected in ICI buildings construction and non-residential maintenance activity.

“Although our outlook forecasts demand for non-residential construction to step down from the peak it reaches in the near term, it is important to not overlook the additional demand for workers that could be created by a long list of proposed resource-development projects that have been announced, but which have not yet been modeled into our forecast scenario,” says Irwin Bess, Executive Director of BuildForce Canada. “Any of these could create significant upward demand pressures in the non-residential sector.”

“Additionally, it is important to remember that the projected slowdown in demand for residential construction over the forecast period is a function of the market returning to near-normal levels after several years of high-tempo activity.”

A full analysis of British Columbia’s construction industry requires detailed looks at not only the provincial market as a whole, but also three key provincial sub-markets: the Lower Mainland, the Thompson-Okanagan region, and Vancouver Island. Each has its own unique market conditions.

The Lower Mainland construction market, which includes Greater Vancouver, Fraser Valley, Sunshine Coast, Squamish, and Lillooet, reported an overall gain in construction activity in 2025 as a notable increase in non-residential activity supplemented a modest rise in the residential sector.

With the outlook calling for growth to slow in both components to 2035, employment in each is projected to contract. Residential employment is projected to decline by 15% compared to 2025 levels, with losses exclusive to new-housing construction. Employment in the non-residential sector, meanwhile, is anticipated to move 3% lower over the forecast period as work slows on tracked engineering-construction projects.

New to this year’s forecast is the introduction of the Thompson-Okanagan region, which includes Kelowna, Kamloops, Penticton, Salmon Arm, Vernon, Golden, and Revelstoke. Construction investment levels slowed in the region in 2025, with reductions in both the residential and non-residential sectors.

The outlook calls for activity in the non-residential sector to rise by 2035, and offset a contraction in residential-sector investment. A projected decline in new-housing demand leads to an overall residential employment contraction of 11% over 2025 levels by 2035. Meanwhile, projected increases in employment relating to ICI buildings and non-residential maintenance help to increase non-residential employment by 6%.

Activity in the Vancouver Island construction market, which includes the Capital Region, Cowichan Valley, Nanaimo, Alberni-Clayoquot, Strathcona, Comox Valley, Powell River, Mount Waddington, and Central Coast, contracted slightly in 2025. A modest rise in investment relating to non-residential construction was offset by a larger contraction in residential-sector activity.

Investment in both is generally expected to trend lower into 2035, but with losses exclusive to the residential sector. Contracting demand for new housing in particular in the region is expected to reduce residential employment levels by 15% compared to 2025 levels by 2035. Meanwhile, employment in the non-residential sector is projected to remain largely unchanged as gains in employment relating to ICI buildings and non-residential maintenance offset an expected decline in employment relating to engineering construction activity.

BuildForce Canada projects that British Columbia’s construction industry will need to recruit 48,200 additional workers over the forecast period to keep pace with expansion and replacement demands. Of those, 46,700 workers – or 22% of the current construction labour force – are expected to retire during this period.

Although the addition of 40,800 workers under the age of 30 from local recruitment efforts will help to offset some of these retirements, the labour force faces a near-term need for large numbers of experienced skilled workers. By 2035, the industry could face a deficit of 7,400 workers unless anticipated recruitment is increased.

(Note that discrete analyses of the residential and non-residential labour force trends are available in their respective reports.)

“With non-residential construction demands rising to especially high levels in the very near future, the industry must keep a sharp focus on recruiting into the skilled trades and creating opportunities for displaced residential workers to fill potential gaps,” says Chris Atchison, President of the British Columbia Construction Association.

Keeping pace with demand will require a combination of strategies, including maintaining local recruitment and training efforts, particularly among groups traditionally under-represented in the construction labour force, the hiring of workers from other industries with the required skill sets, and the recruitment of immigrants to Canada with skilled trades training or construction experience.

New apprenticeship registrations in British Columbia’s largest construction trades rose sharply in 2023, in part due to a change in provincial regulation that introduced compulsory certification for seven electrical and mechanical trades. Although growth in new registrations have slowed since, levels remained elevated in 2024, bringing the province to a record number of registered apprentices.

“It is encouraging to see more apprentices joining the skilled construction trades, but that is only half the story,” Atchison says. “Supports for program completions are also key, as is the need to diversify the provincial construction labour force through greater representation among under-represented groups of workers.”

In 2025, there were approximately 35,930 women employed in British Columbia’s construction industry. Of them, 35% worked on site, directly on construction projects. As a share of the 204,400 tradespeople employed in the province’s construction industry, however, women made up 6%.

The Indigenous population is the fastest-growing population in Canada and therefore presents recruitment opportunities. In 2025, Indigenous Peoples represented 4.2% of British Columbia’s total labour force and 4.6% of its construction labour force. Both figures have declined since 2016. As the Indigenous population continues to grow, the sector must continue its recruitment efforts and invest in initiatives that foster long-term retention.

The construction industry is also committed to the recruitment of newcomers to Canada. Based on historical settlement patterns and adjusted federal immigration targets, the province is expected to welcome more than 371,100 new immigrants between 2026 and 2035, making these individuals, if successfully recruited, a key and growing part of the industry’s future labour force.

Increasing the participation rate of women, Indigenous Peoples, and new Canadians could help British Columbia’s construction industry address its future labour force needs.

BuildForce Canada is a national industry-led organization that represents all sectors of Canada’s construction industry. Its mandate is to support the labour market development needs of the construction and maintenance industry. As part of these activities, BuildForce works with key industry stakeholders, including contractors, proponents of construction, labour providers, governments, and training providers, to identify both demand and supply trends that will impact labour force capacity in the sector, and supports the career searches of job seekers wanting to work in the industry. BuildForce also leads programs and initiatives that support workforce upskilling, workforce productivity improvements, improvements to training modalities, human resource tools to support the adoption of industry best practices, as well as other value-added initiatives focused on supporting the industry’s labour force development needs. Visit www.buildforce.ca.

For further information, contact James Raiswell, Director of Communications, BuildForce Canada, at raiswell@buildforce.ca or 343-998-1674.

This report was produced with the support and input of a variety of provincial construction and maintenance industry stakeholders. For local industry reaction to this latest BuildForce Canada report, please contact:

Chris Atchison
President
British Columbia Construction Association
250-818-9671

Paul de Jong
President
Progressive Contractors Association of Canada
403-620-3781

Jeannine Martin
President
Vancouver Regional Construction Association
604-294-3766

Kelly Scott
Chief Executive Officer
BC Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association
604-436-0220

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