Equipping 21st Century Construction Graduates: a review of key skills in fostering infrastructural development

The construction industry continues to be a significant part of the global economy and shapes the built environment and quality oflife for people around the world. It is an industry which is regarded as uncertain and continuously changing, requiring the services of competent professionals such as engineers, architects, surveyors amongst others, inthe execution of construction activities to achieve timely results. This inherent complexity that characterizes the construction industry requires, not only graduates possessing a strong academic foundation, but also the right skills to meet up with the challenges. However, the construction industry has been plagued with a shortage of skilled graduates in proffering solutions to emerging problems. This paper aims to identify relevant skills that construction graduates need to possess in order to contribute meaningfully to the future of the building construction industry. A review of relevant literatures was conducted from journals and conference articles from databases including Taylor and Francis online, Springer, Emerald, ASCE, Scopus amongst others. Various skills were identified in the literature which further helped pinpoint the most important ones after a random study across further literatures were conducted. Notable findings from this study revealed that communication, teamwork, technology skills, problem solving skills, individual values, technical skills, leadership, numeracy and adaptability are all essential to construction graduates ahead of the construction industry. The study further makes recommendations to HEI's emphasizing the need to revise their curricula to better prepare construction students for success in the industry. In order to ease the transition from the world of the Higher Education Institutions (HEI) to the world of employment, it is of crucial importance for HEI's to provide university students with on-the-job skills to enable them cope and meet the ever increasing, changing and challenging needs of the construction industry in this 21"1 century and beyond