By Ayesha Hering - technical leader in the building services engineering sector

Recent commentary has once again highlighted South Africa’s shortage of critical skills, particularly in engineering and technical fields. The concern is well founded, as without sufficient capability, infrastructure delivery, industrial growth and economic recovery are all constrained.

However, framing the challenge primarily as a shortage risks overlooking a more complex reality.

From within project environments, a quieter shift is taking place. Engineers are not only being developed through formal programmes. Increasingly, they are being developed during project delivery itself.

Capability built under constraint

In many firms, resource limitations, compressed timelines and delivery pressure have altered how development occurs. Junior engineers are contributing meaningfully earlier in their careers, often within multidisciplinary project teams where coordination, design iteration and site constraints intersect.

Learning is taking place through:

• live design coordination across disciplines
• responding to real-time project changes
• engagement with contractors and site conditions
• navigating client-driven revisions under programme pressure

This form of embedded learning accelerates exposure, but it is largely unstructured.

On complex building services projects, coordination meetings increasingly function as informal training environments. Junior engineers are exposed to multidisciplinary decision-making in real time, often needing to interpret inputs from electrical, mechanical and architectural teams while responding to programme pressure. In these settings, learning is immediate, but not always structured.

Project environments as training grounds

Complex engineering projects, particularly in building services and other multidisciplinary environments, now function as primary development platforms. Engineers are required to integrate technical knowledge with practical constraints, often without the staged progression traditionally associated with professional development.

Coordination meetings, design reviews and site engagements have effectively become learning environments. In these spaces, engineers are exposed to decision-making processes, trade-offs and risk considerations in real time.

While this creates opportunities for accelerated growth, outcomes are highly dependent on team structure and the availability of experienced oversight.

The risk of uneven capability

The growing reliance on project-based learning introduces a different type of risk. It is not only a shortage of engineers, but also inconsistency in capability.

When development is not intentionally structured:

• exposure varies significantly between projects
• mentorship becomes informal and dependent on individual capacity
• rework can increase due to incomplete understanding
• senior engineers become bottlenecks for both delivery and decision-making

Over time, this inconsistency does not only affect individual development. It begins to influence project outcomes more broadly. Variability in capability can lead to increased rework, delayed coordination resolution and greater reliance on a limited pool of experienced engineers. This places additional pressure on already constrained delivery environments.

Recognising the shift

South Africa’s engineering sector is already adapting to constraints by embedding learning within delivery. The question is whether this shift is being recognised and managed.

If project environments are now central to capability development, then development itself must be treated as part of project delivery, not separate from it.

Practical interventions may include:

• structuring responsibility in line with demonstrated competence
• using coordination processes as deliberate learning opportunities
• integrating mentorship into delivery workflows
• recognising development as a factor in project success

Beyond the shortage narrative

The narrative of a critical skills shortage remains relevant, but it is incomplete.

Engineering capability in South Africa is not only limited by how many professionals enter the system, but also by how effectively they are developed once they are in it. Increasingly, that development is taking place under the pressures of live project environments.

Understanding and responding to this reality will be critical to strengthening both the profession and the delivery of infrastructure more broadly.

Looking ahead

As infrastructure delivery pressures continue to increase, the ability to develop engineers within live project environments will become an increasingly important capability in itself. Firms that recognise and structure this shift are likely to build more resilient teams. Those that rely solely on traditional development models may find themselves constrained not only by capacity, but by capability. In this context, engineering development is no longer a parallel function. It is becoming integral to delivery.