Significant population growth has occurred, and is set to continue across all major Australian cities. Currently, the State of Victoria is the fastest growing amongst all the Australian states and territories, recording the highest growth of 2.3% in 2017, with forecasts indicating a 50% increase of the state’s current population over the next three decades. These demographic changes have necessitated higher demand for critical building and infrastructure services. However, there is endemic shortage of skilled labour across the entire construction industry, which could impact ongoing development and delivering of strategic infrastructure over the coming years. This occupational skills shortage has further economic implications by reducing productivity and delaying development and growth. The lack of investment in training in recent decades, the increase in rework, the decline in interest in site roles and the continued growth in the industry means that it is not well placed to deal with current requirements. This paper outlines the case for an alternative education method and presents an innovative framework to create transformation change for workforce training and skills development for the construction industry through the “Maker Immersion Project”. The innovative project, funded by the state government, will developed a world-first fully deployable, technology enhanced education package that creates an immersive learning by blending traditional face-to-face training with Virtual Reality simulations. © 2021, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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