Digital BIM overlays and on-site collaboration highlight coordination and planning at a major construction site during India’s infrastructure expansion.
India, August 30, 2025
India’s infrastructure expansion faces a growing risk from a severe shortage of Building Information Modeling (BIM) professionals. Experts warn the country needs roughly ten times the current BIM workforce to avoid project delays, cost overruns and reduced global competitiveness. Major projects across airports, transit, highways, smart cities and green buildings depend on integrated digital workflows that BIM enables. Root causes include outdated curricula, fragmented upskilling and low stakeholder awareness. Leaders recommend modernizing education, scaling industry–academia project-based training, offering incentives for adoption and running sector-wide awareness campaigns to align skills with digital and sustainability goals.
India is racing ahead with airports, highways, metros, smart cities, and green buildings, reshaping the nation’s landscape. Yet a looming crisis threatens to slow this momentum: a severe shortage of Building Information Modeling (BIM) experts. The absence of enough BIM talent could curb efficiency, push up costs, and chip away at global competitiveness as the country aims to become a top player in construction by the end of the decade.
Architect Harkunwar Singh, the CEO and Co‑Founder of Novatr, has highlighted the issue as a silent but critical crisis for infrastructure growth. In plain terms, if India cannot recruit and train enough BIM professionals, ambitious projects risk delays and overruns, undermining the country’s bid to sustain rapid expansion and attract international investment.
Looking forward, the scale of the challenge becomes clear: by 2030, India is projected to become the third-largest construction market in the world. In such a landscape, modern infrastructure requires integrated digital workflows, and BIM stands out as an essential tool for collaboration, cost optimization, and asset lifecycle management. Yet Singh notes that India’s BIM adoption remains slow and lags far behind peers where BIM is already embedded in public projects.
The contrast with other regions is stark: in places like the United Kingdom and Singapore, BIM is mandated for major public works. That level of adoption helps smooth collaboration across design, engineering, and construction teams and reduces the risk of costly delays. In India, low BIM adoption creates a cycle of delays, cost overruns, and inefficient planning, which erodes productivity and raises the risk of wasted resources.
Singh identifies three key reasons behind the digital talent gap in BIM:
Without action, the inefficiencies will persist, driving up costs and delaying projects. The ripple effects extend beyond project timelines: investors and lenders increasingly demand modern standards, and a lack of digital readiness could deter funding for large-scale programs.
To bridge the BIM talent gap, Singh proposes a multi-pronged approach:
Singh emphasizes that BIM professionals don’t just use software—they orchestrate collaboration that saves time, money, and resources. His message is clear: without a robust BIM workforce, India risks a slower, less efficient pace of infrastructure delivery even as demand grows.
Beyond the talent pipeline, the broader policy and market context matters. India’s push toward sustainable, climate‑resilient infrastructure means BIM is not just a tool for efficiency but a cornerstone of green construction strategies. When digital workflows are widespread, projects can better integrate energy efficiency, waste reduction, and lifecycle thinking from design through operation. This alignment with sustainability goals is another reason to accelerate BIM adoption and talent development.
There is a broader global backdrop to India’s BIM challenge. International practice shows BIM adoption typically correlates with faster project delivery, lower risk of overruns, and better collaboration across design and construction teams. The shift toward digital skills in construction is evident in many markets where the industry is increasingly embracing data, analytics, cloud tools, and digital twins. In practice, countries that mandate BIM on public projects often report smoother project execution, shorter cycles, and clearer asset handovers at completion. India’s pathway toward this future must address the talent gap head‑on while expanding access to hands‑on BIM training and aligning curricula with real‑world project needs.
If the proposed actions take hold, the BIM talent pool could expand substantially by 2030, helping India maintain the pace of infrastructure growth while improving project predictability and cost control. A stronger BIM ecosystem would also support sustainability goals and help attract global capital by showing that India can deliver complex, digitalized projects with modern governance and oversight. Conversely, failure to act could leave the country vulnerable to continued delays, higher costs, and a diminished ability to keep up with international competitors.
In short, the path forward is clear: modernize education, connect industry with academia, incentivize adoption, and elevate the sector’s digital culture. The outcome will shape how effectively India can convert a vibrant pipeline of projects into successful, timely deliveries that meet both growth and sustainability targets.
India’s infrastructure ambitions are vast, but the BIM talent shortage could bottleneck progress. Addressing education, training, and awareness now is essential to keep the construction boom on track and to ensure long‑term competitiveness in a digital era.
BIM enables integrated digital workflows that improve planning, cost control, collaboration, and asset lifecycle management, which are essential for complex, large-scale infrastructure projects.
Experts point to a severe shortage of BIM professionals that could slow infrastructure growth if not addressed by education, upskilling, and awareness efforts.
Reasons include outdated curricula with limited hands-on BIM experience, fragmented upskilling programs lacking project-based learning, and low awareness of BIM’s broader benefits beyond basic use.
Actions include modernizing curricula to embed BIM skills, fostering industry–academia collaboration for hands-on learning, offering incentives to accelerate BIM adoption, and launching an awareness campaign to drive cultural change.
A larger BIM workforce could help India deliver projects on time and within budget, support sustainability goals, and attract global capital by showing a mature digital infrastructure ecosystem.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| BIM talent shortage | Highlights a critical gap in qualified BIM professionals required for India’s fast‑tracked infrastructure projects. |
| Impact on infrastructure growth | Without BIM capability, project timelines, costs, and efficiency could suffer, affecting overall growth and competitiveness. |
| Reasons for the gap | Outdated curricula, fragmented upskilling, and limited awareness of BIM’s strategic value. |
| Proposed solutions | Curriculum modernization, industry–academia collaboration, incentives, and a sector-wide awareness push. |
| Strategic importance | Alignment with sustainability goals and a push to attract global capital through modern digital practices. |
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