Overcoming Barriers and Enhancing Data Sharing in Construction

Anil Sawhney, Ph.D. PMP FHEA FRICS, Head of Sustainability at RICS

Digitalisation in construction continues to evolve, driven by industry-wide shifts towards efficiency, collaboration, and sustainability. The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has provided additional impetus. However, persistent blockers hinder high levels of digital adoption, while data-sharing practices remain below expectations. The findings from the RICS Digitalisation in Construction reports (2022-2024) provide valuable insights into how these trends develop, revealing progress and ongoing challenges.

What is blocking digitalisation in construction?

The reports developed based on RICS Global Construction Monitor surveys measured the impact of various barriers preventing the widespread adoption of digital tools in construction. Respondents ranked these blockers based on severity, using a scale from high to low. A Relative Importance Index (RII) was applied to rank these barriers more precisely.

Over the three years, the most significant blocker remained ‘cost, effort, and the changes required’ to implement digital solutions. While its impact slightly declined from 0.8325 in 2023 to 0.8218 in 2024, it continues to present a formidable challenge. The shortage of skilled personnel also remains a major issue, with its RII dropping slightly, reflecting possible improvements but still indicating a substantial hurdle. Other consistent barriers include a lack of clear demand from clients and inconsistent approaches within the supply chain. These findings emphasise the need for industry-wide coordination and investment in training and technology adoption.

Are data-sharing practices in construction improving?

The survey also examined how construction professionals share data, categorising responses into four groups: Provide & Receive, Provide Only, Receive Only, and None. The RII methodology was applied to determine which types of data are most frequently shared.

The analysis indicates that ‘quantity take-off and cost estimating’ remains the function with the highest level of data sharing, with an RII of 0.7218 in 2024, reflecting its critical role in project planning and execution. ‘Health, safety, and wellbeing’ follows closely behind, steadily engaging in data exchange. Conversely, life cycle carbon emissions data remains the least shared despite a slight increase to 0.5134 in 2024. This suggests a lingering reluctance to openly share environmental impact data, potentially due to complexity, regulatory uncertainties or competitive concerns.

The trend analysis reveals a consistent but slow improvement in data-sharing behaviours. More professionals are engaging in information exchange, but significant gaps remain, particularly in sustainability-related data. This indicates a need for more substantial incentives and precise guidelines to promote transparency and collaboration.

Interpreting the findings and their implications

The persistence of cost and effort as the primary barriers to digital adoption underscores the financial and operational challenges associated with transitioning to digital technologies. Addressing this requires strategic interventions, including clearer value propositions, improved cost-sharing models, and targeted funding to support digital transformation efforts.

Data sharing trends suggest that while there is strong adoption in cost-related areas, industry-wide collaboration on sustainability data remains insufficient. This has implications for broader policy and regulatory frameworks, as better data transparency is essential for achieving whole-life carbon assessments and compliance.

Recommendations

To accelerate digital adoption and improve data-sharing practices, several measures should be prioritised by the industry:

1. Reducing cost barriers: Clear financial incentives driven by clients and phased adoption models can ease the transition to digital processes.

2. Strengthening workforce capabilities: Investment in training programs can address the persistent shortage of skilled personnel.

3. Encouraging regulatory and client-driven demand: Mandating data-sharing standards and integrating them into project requirements can stimulate broader adoption.

4. Enhancing interoperability and standardisation: Establishing uniform data formats and frameworks will facilitate and enhance sharing across projects and organisations.

5. Creating incentives for sustainability data sharing: Carbon-related data remains uncertain, highlighting the need for industry incentives to encourage a robust data ecosystem and transparency.

Conclusion

The RICS Digitalisation report findings indicate steady but slow progress in digital adoption and data sharing. The continued adoption of digital tools and approaches by the sector will be critical in delivering and retrofitting buildings and infrastructure assets that will provide social value, support the decarbonisation agenda and provide value for money for project sponsors, whether  governmental, corporate or consumers. Regulatory and macroeconomic factors, coupled with a heightened awareness of the threat and costs of climate change, continue to accelerate the adoption of digital processes and practices. As a result, downstream construction processes, beyond design, continue to shift towards model-centric and data-driven workflows, and building information models and digital twins are now central to these downstream functions that project teams must perform. Therefore, it is critical to continue monitoring and measuring the progress made by the sector using these new tools and approaches