Autodesk’s first global, annual study released today titled 2023 State of Design & Make, featuring insights from industry leaders across architecture, engineering, construction, product design, manufacturing and entertainment. The study identifies the most pressing drivers of change to help today’s leaders make informed, strategic decisions on how to prioritize and invest in the future to impact business resilience, sustainability and talent management.  

Below are interesting findings from the report, including stats specific to the AEC industry: 

• Sustainability is no longer an afterthought, it’s good for business.  
  • 54% of AEC companies plan to invest more in sustainability in the coming years (page 9).  
  • 82% of AEC companies are feeling pressure from customers [to improve sustainability], compared to government (78%), investors (76%), and employees (73%) (page 49).  
  • 94% of respondents expect their industry/organization to make sustainability focused changes in the coming years (page 42); more than half indicate they will increase sustainability investments over the next three years.  
• Attracting talent and retaining skilled employees is the top concern.  
  • When asked to name the top three challenges facing their companies today, 48% cited the difficulty of attracting and retaining talent (page 11).  
  • In AEC, 70% admitted their company struggles to find people with the right skills and 68% feel that access to skilled employees is a barrier to their organization’s growth (page 31). 
  • 62% of AEC companies plan to invest in talent acquisition and retention and 54% plan to invest in remote work (page 14).  
• Digitally mature companies report they’re more resilient.  
  • 79% of respondents said that the future growth of their company will depend on digital tools (page 4).  
  • Autodesk customers in the AEC industries showed a 57% uptick in the consumption of cloud resources in the first year of the pandemic (page 22).  
  • Moving forward, 73% of AEC companies plan to invest in technology to deliver improved project outcomes and 70% plan to invest in product and/or service innovation (page 14).