The trades skills shortage is real. But for a growing number of young Australians, it is less a crisis to weather and more a gap worth stepping into.
Anthony Phonlamuang left high school without an ATAR.
No score. No clear plan. No obvious next step.
What he had was a willingness to try something practical. He enrolled in a Certificate III in Painting and Decorating at TAFE NSW Granville, almost on a whim. And within a few years, he had launched his own business.
His former schoolmates, many of whom went on to university, were still completing degrees by the time Phonlamuang was running a team and building a client base.
He is now 33, a decade into business ownership, and mentoring apprentices of his own.
“After ten years in business, I’m proud of what I’ve achieved and encourage my apprentices to get qualified because you never know where it may lead.”
Phonlamuang’s story is not unusual anymore. Across Australia’s construction industry, a growing number of young tradies are converting skills shortages into real business opportunity. Not waiting for the industry to fix itself. Not sitting on the sidelines. Moving into the gap.
The Shortage Is Real. So Is the Opportunity.
Australia’s construction industry has a well-documented skills problem. Demand for residential work has surged. The pipeline of qualified tradespeople has not kept pace. In some trades, the shortfall has been building for years.
The standard narrative frames this as a crisis. And in some respects, it is. Projects drag. Costs rise. Builders carry the pressure of chasing labour in a tight market.
But there is another way to read it.
When skilled people are scarce, the ones who show up and do the work well have more leverage than ever. They can charge appropriately. They can build client relationships quickly. They can establish a reputation in a market that is actively looking for reliability.
Daniel Hunter, CEO of Business NSW, put it plainly: skills shortages across key industries like construction are a workforce challenge, but they are also prompting skilled tradies to turn their expertise into sustainable small businesses.
That shift is showing up in the data. According to a recent study by Intuit QuickBooks Entrepreneurship, 66 per cent of Australians are considering starting a business or side hustle this year. In the trades, the conditions have never been more favourable for making that move.
The TAFE Pathway That Actually Works
One of the quieter success stories in this space is the vocational training pipeline.
Apprenticeships have never been glamorous. They rarely make headlines. But the employment outcomes are hard to argue with.
The latest data from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research shows 95 per cent of trade graduates were employed after training in 2025. In a labour market where competition for many white-collar roles is intensifying, that number is remarkable.
For Monica Lloyd, Head Teacher of Painting and Decorating at TAFE NSW, that outcome is not an accident. It reflects what happens when training is built around real industry need.
Graduates like Anthony, she says, are proof that by understanding labour market shortfalls, you can use it to your advantage and carve out a career that works for you.
That framing matters. Trade apprenticeships have long suffered from a perception problem. They are treated by many families, school counsellors and career advisers as a fallback option. Something you do when other paths are closed off.
The reality, increasingly, is the opposite.
“Trade apprenticeships give people who might not have deemed self-employment possible a clear pathway to industry-aligned skills and worksite experience, setting them up for future success.”
What TAFE and similar providers are delivering is not just a qualification. It is job-ready experience, industry connections, and a foundation for business ownership that university rarely provides to graduates in their early twenties.
Phonlamuang competed in the 2014 National WorldSkills competition, which he describes as the Olympics for trades, while still an apprentice. He was building a professional identity, a network and a reputation before he had finished training.
That is not a soft outcome. That is a business asset.
What Business Ownership Actually Looks Like
Starting a trade business in your twenties is not a smooth ride. The early years carry real risk.
Cash flow is unpredictable. Quoting takes time to get right. Managing clients, suppliers and subcontractors is a different skill set from doing the work. Growing a team adds another layer of complexity.
Hunter acknowledged this directly. The early years of running a business are often the hardest, which is why the right training and experience is so important.
What helps is starting with something the market actually needs. And in construction right now, qualified tradies are something the market needs urgently.
Phonlamuang’s approach is instructive. He built his client network by treating clients as people, not transactions. He describes it as forming friendships rather than just completing jobs. That relationship-first mindset created a referral engine that made working for himself a natural next step, not a leap of faith.
That approach also insulates a small business from the volatility that hits operators who compete purely on price. When clients trust you, they return. When they return, the pipeline stabilises. When the pipeline stabilises, the business becomes something you can build on.
The Apprentice Problem No One Is Talking About Loudly Enough
There is a bigger issue sitting underneath this story.
Australia needs more qualified tradespeople. The housing targets set by federal and state governments are ambitious. The skilled workforce required to hit them is not there yet. Everyone in the industry knows this.
But attracting the next generation of apprentices into construction is made harder by the way the industry is portrayed publicly.
If a 17-year-old is considering their options and every media headline they encounter is about builder collapses, project failures and industry stress, the rational response is to look elsewhere. Why would you sign up for that?
The industry’s image problem is not just a PR inconvenience. It is a structural recruitment challenge. And it is one the sector largely has the power to address.
Stories like Phonlamuang’s are part of the answer. Not spin. Not marketing. Actual evidence that the trades offer a credible, practical and financially viable path for people without a clear post-school plan.
The 95 per cent employment rate is part of the answer. The business ownership data is part of the answer. The apprentices being mentored by people who built businesses from nothing are part of the answer.
None of that gets communicated loudly enough.
“Skills shortages across key industries like construction are a workforce challenge, but they are also prompting skilled tradies to turn their expertise into sustainable small businesses.”
What the Industry Needs to Do
The conditions for young tradies entering business ownership are genuinely good right now. But the ecosystem around them needs to keep pace.
Support structures matter. Hunter pointed to the NSW Government’s move to bring back a Business Connect-style advisory service as a positive development. Young business owners in the trades often have the technical skills and the work ethic. What they sometimes lack is access to practical guidance on the business side: how to price correctly, how to manage cash flow, how to set up systems that do not collapse when work picks up.
The training providers are doing their part. TAFE NSW and similar institutions are producing graduates who are employment-ready and increasingly business-ready.
What needs to follow is sustained industry investment in making those businesses succeed. Not just start.
Because the tradie who starts a business, survives the first three years and builds a team is not just a personal success story. They are a new employer. A mentor. A business that trains apprentices of its own. A node in the supply chain that builders depend on.
That compound effect is how the industry actually grows its way out of the skills shortage. Not by lamenting the problem. By developing the people who will solve it.
The Bigger Picture
Anthony Phonlamuang picked up a paintbrush without knowing where it would lead.
Ten years later, he runs a business, employs apprentices and competes at a national level.
That story is not rare. It is replicable. And the construction industry’s job, collectively, is to make sure more people get to hear it before they decide the trades are not for them.
The skills shortage is real. The opportunity inside it is also real.
For young Australians willing to learn a trade and back themselves, the timing has rarely been better.
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