Ireland needs 22,300 more engineers. Are we using their time properly?

Ireland has a well-documented shortage of experienced engineers. At the same time, BIM is becoming capable of carrying more of the repetitive work that has traditionally occupied their time. That presents an interesting question for clients and design teams about where engineering expertise is best applied.

Ireland will need “an additional 22,300 engineers to meet future economic and industry needs,” according to Engineers Ireland. Its 2025 Barometer found that 79% of employers regarded the shortage of experienced engineers as a major recruitment challenge, while 90% expected skills shortages to remain at their current level or worsen.

Every engineering firm is experiencing that recruitment pressure first-hand. Finding experienced engineers is our greatest challenge, which makes the way their time is used on a project increasingly important.

Part of our response has been to continue growing our engineering office in the Philippines. Almost three years after opening, our Manila team has grown from one engineer to 20, with plans to continue expanding, giving us access to a much larger pool of qualified engineering talent while supporting increasingly complex Data Centre projects across Europe and North America.

There is a parallel change taking place in how projects are designed. Ireland's public-sector BIM programme reached another milestone in July, extending the requirements to design teams on public works projects above €5 million where Stage 1 of the Capital Works Management Framework begins on or after 1 July 2026.

The Capital Works Management Framework describes BIM as “part of the overall Government strategy to digitalise the construction sector by 2030.”

As more project information sits within structured digital models, there is an opportunity to look more closely at the work engineers still carry out manually and decide where that time could be better spent.

What the model already knows

Daniel Lynch, Executive Director and Senior Mechanical Engineer, remembers calculating chilled-water pipe volumes by printing the drawings, measuring the pipe runs with a scale rule and then working through the figures manually, including the fittings along the route.

Today, provided the model contains the right information:

“BIM will calculate the total volume in minutes.” - Daniel Lynch

That is a simple example of a much broader change, particularly on data centre projects, where the volume of M&E information, coordination and repeatable technical work can be substantial. These projects involve constant design development, equipment schedules, quantities and calculations, and increasingly some of that work can be generated from information that already exists within the model.

Our BIM and engineering teams have been working closely together to identify where that can be done reliably and efficiently. For example, many elements of plant and equipment scheduling have already been automated, allowing information held in the model to feed directly into equipment schedules. This replaces the traditional method of manual data entry into Excel sheets which can be quite tedious. Updates on schedules integrated within the BIM model can be carried out almost instantaneously.

“We work closely with Damian, our BIM Innovation and AI Lead on how best we can utilise BIM as a design tool. For example, on ductwork calculations, looking at how established pressure-loss data for different components can be connected more directly with the system being designed”. - Daniel Lynch

The technical processes differ, but the opportunity for the project is much the same: engineers spend less time repeatedly extracting and processing information and have more time available to examine what that information means for the design.

Where experience matters

That becomes particularly important when a project changes.

A different plant selection can affect power demand, controls, pipework, ductwork, space requirements and maintenance access. Moving a service to resolve one coordination issue can create another further along the route. A layout that works on the model may still be awkward to install or maintain once the building is operating.

Experienced engineers are valuable because they understand those connections. They can look beyond the immediate calculation or individual piece of plant and see how a decision travels through the wider design.

For architects, developers, project managers and cost consultants, this is where the use of engineering time becomes relevant. More capacity for technical review and coordination means more attention can be given to issues that affect buildability, programme, cost and building performance while there is still scope to address them.

It also matters as project information develops. Models, schedules and calculations can quickly fall out of step when each is being maintained separately. Drawing more of those outputs from a common source reduces duplication and helps the design team work from information that reflects the current project rather than an earlier iteration.

Automation has to be proven

Daniel is deliberately careful about which processes are automated.

“There are items that you cannot automate readily,” he says. A new workflow has to be tested on a real project, understood properly and shown to be dependable before it is used more widely.

That discipline is important because a calculation produced automatically still depends on the quality of the information behind it. A wrong parameter or an unsuitable assumption can travel quickly through a digital process, so the engineer reviewing the result still needs to understand how it was derived and whether it makes sense within the wider design.

This is also why the work is being developed jointly between our BIM and engineering teams. The people building the workflow need the input of the engineers who understand the systems, calculations and project consequences behind it.

Using scarce expertise well

Ireland’s engineering shortage will take time to address. More people need to enter the profession, qualify and gain the experience required to lead increasingly complex projects.

In the meantime, BIM is becoming embedded across a wider range of projects. The CWMF adoption timeline extends again in January 2027, when the mandate reaches contractors and supply chains on projects above €5 million and design teams on projects above €1 million.

That creates an immediate opportunity for engineering consultancies to look at how the information within those models is being used and where established, repeatable processes can be carried out more efficiently.

For the people appointing and working alongside those engineers, the value is ultimately quite practical. Experienced engineering time is difficult to find, and it is best spent where experience makes the greatest difference: interrogating the design, resolving difficult interfaces and making sound decisions before those decisions become expensive to revisit.

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