Buildings Are Aging Faster Than the Trades Can Refill

Your building doesn’t know what’s happening in the office market. Its chillers still need someone at 2 a.m. in July, whether occupancy is 95% or 65%.

Commercial real estate spends a lot of time on who’s in the building. There’s a quieter question: who’s keeping it running, and what happens when that person retires?

Old buildings, and fewer people who understand them

JLL’s skilled trades research, released in April, frames the problem in stark terms. It reports that 53% of U.S. commercial building stock was delivered before 1990, and estimates that by 2030, 2.1 million skilled trades positions could go unfilled. It also cites the U.S. Department of Education on potential economic losses reaching $1 trillion a year. Projections like these deserve some caution. But the two facts underneath are hard to argue with: the stock is old, and it isn’t getting younger.

Demand isn’t standing still either. JLL cites projected growth through 2034 of 9.5% for electricians and 8.1% for HVAC technicians, against 3.1% for all occupations. And the supply comparison it offers is the sharpest number in the report: nearly 600,000 jobs were posted for major skilled trades positions last year, while about 150,000 new workers entered through apprenticeship programs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ newest projections run a little differently, and they’re no more comforting. It expects electrician jobs to grow 9% and HVAC jobs to grow 11% from 2025 to 2035, against 3% for all occupations, with about 72,700 and 40,600 openings a year.

The contractors you hire are fishing in the same pond. In the 2026 AGC and NCCER survey, electricians were the hardest craft to fill, at 81% of firms with openings, and HVAC technicians came in at 77%.

The work is also getting harder to step into. JLL describes modern buildings as networked, software-controlled assets that call for digital fluency on top of the traditional craft. Its examples range from low-voltage specialists deploying occupancy sensors in offices to refrigeration specialists working through EPA mandates on refrigerants in life sciences facilities. A technician who learned on older equipment may need new skills, and a new hire needs both.

Are the trades really about to retire?

Here’s where the usual telling goes wrong. It says everyone in the trades is about to retire and nobody young is coming. The data is more nuanced, and the nuance changes what you should do.

NAHB’s analysis of 2024 Census data puts the median construction worker at 42, just one year older than the typical U.S. worker. Younger workers are arriving, and quickly.

Gen Z’s share has more than doubled in five years. That’s encouraging. JLL points to a similar shift, with community college enrollment up 12% over five years and trades-related majors among the fastest growing.

So the problem isn’t only headcount. It’s experience. A first-year technician can’t replace 30 years of knowing that the third-floor air handler has a quirk nobody wrote down. Workers 55 and older still make up 22% of the construction workforce, and each one who leaves takes something off the books with them.

How much does the age gap vary by trade?

Averages hide where your risk actually sits. NAHB’s trade-level figures show a wide spread.

Solar installers at 27 and inspectors at 46 describe different labor markets. A blanket “the trades are aging” strategy misses that. The useful question for an owner is narrower: which specific skills does this building depend on, and how old is the person who has them?

ABC’s chief economist adds one you’ll want on your list: about one-fifth of all electricians are over 55, at the same time data center demand is pulling hard on that trade.

What can owners and property managers do now?

Map the knowledge before you lose it

For each asset, write down who’d be missed most if they left tomorrow, and what only they know. Sequences of operation. Which valve sticks. Which vendor actually answers on a Sunday. Then get it on paper, or better, get it taught to someone.

Hire one level early

Bring in the successor while the veteran is still there, with enough overlap for real handoff. It feels expensive on a single-year budget. Compare it with the cost of an emergency call, a failed piece of equipment, or a tenant who doesn’t renew.

Treat building engineers as a recruiting priority

These roles often get filled reactively, through whoever’s available. They deserve the attention you’d give a leasing or asset management search, because a building’s performance rests on them. Professional networks help here. Prax co-founder Alix Spratley is a Founding Council member of Building Engineer Network Houston, and communities like it are where a lot of this knowledge and these relationships live.

Build a pipeline, even a small one

JLL’s own example is instructive. It describes a 26-week skilled trades internship pilot, partnered with trade schools, where 90% of eligible graduates received a full-time offer. You don’t need JLL’s scale to do a version of this. A relationship with one local program and one mentor is a start. JLL’s broader playbook is build, grow, and retain: build pipelines through educational partnerships, grow skills with continuous training on newer building systems, and retain people through structured career paths and strong workplace cultures. In our view, a career path written down on one page is cheap next to most capital projects.

Check your vendors’ benches too

If your HVAC or electrical contractor is short-staffed, your response times will show it. Ask them directly how they’re staffing your account and what happens when their senior tech retires.

The cheapest time to solve this is before it’s urgent

Too often, the search for a building engineer starts when something’s broken or someone’s leaving. By then you’re hiring under pressure, in a tight market, with no overlap for the handoff.

If there’s one person your building can’t run without, that’s the conversation to start now. We’re happy to help you think through it.