Western Australia’s Construction Training Fund has opened applications for a $10 million capital grant round aimed at private training providers. The pool has nearly doubled in two years, and the priorities tell you where the state thinks the workforce gap is.
Western Australia has put $10 million on the table to build out the places where its tradespeople get trained.
The Construction Training Fund opened applications this week for its 2026-27 Capital Grant Program. The money goes to eligible private Registered Training Organisations to lift their training capacity and improve the quality of what they deliver. Applications opened on 22 June and close at 5pm on Friday 17 July.
The headline figure is worth pausing on. This round is $10 million. Last year’s was $6 million. The year before that, $5 million. The size of the program has doubled in two years, which is a clearer signal of intent than any media release line.
For builders, the relevance is indirect but real. You do not apply for this grant. But the RTOs that train your apprentices and upskill your existing crews do, and the quality of their facilities and equipment shapes the quality of the workers who eventually turn up on your sites.
What the grant actually funds
The program provides capital funding. That means infrastructure, equipment, and the physical capacity to train more people to a higher standard. It is not wage support and it is not apprentice incentives. It is money to build and modernise the training base itself.
Funding is allocated on demonstrated need, and applicants have to show their project delivers industry-relevant, high-quality training outcomes. In practice, that has meant things like purpose-built training structures, specialised equipment, and new campuses. The 2025-26 round funded a rigging training structure in Bunbury, portable traffic control units for regional traffic management training, and a new electrical training campus in Midland.
The CTF has flagged six priority areas for this round. Projects that do the following will be favoured:
- Support the residential housing workforce
- Grow apprenticeships and skills tied to clean energy and decarbonisation
- Improve gender equality and workforce diversity
- Support modern methods of construction
- Strengthen workforce retention
- Expand access to training in regional and remote areas, including through mobile and digital delivery
That list is a useful read on where the state sees its gaps. Housing workforce sits at the top. Clean energy skills are close behind. And the inclusion of modern methods of construction, alongside mobile and digital delivery for the regions, shows the fund is trying to keep training aligned with how building is actually changing.
The state’s framing is consistent with that. Skills and TAFE Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson has tied the funding to getting more local workers building homes and delivering the clean energy transition, arguing it prepares the workforce for both current and future demand. The CTF Board, through chair Karen Ho, has positioned the program as a way to keep the training system in step with the skills needed to build homes, deliver major infrastructure, and support the state’s move into new and emerging industries, with the investment in modern facilities, equipment, and delivery methods aimed at strengthening the pipeline of skilled workers.
Where this sits in WA’s broader workforce push
This grant does not exist in isolation. It is the latest piece in a steady run of WA workforce spending.
Earlier this year the state committed another $13.1 million to keep skilled workers moving into its building and construction sector, extending two migration-focused programs that have delivered more than 2,700 tradespeople to WA sites since 2023. Late last year it added seven new fee-free TAFE qualifications in trades tied directly to the housing pipeline, including plumbing, bricklaying, and wall and ceiling lining.
The difference with the Capital Grant Program is the part of the system it targets. Migration moves existing workers around the country. Fee-free TAFE lowers the cost barrier for new entrants. This grant builds the capacity of the training providers themselves, so there are more places, better equipment, and stronger delivery for the people coming through.
A better-equipped RTO trains better apprentices for as long as that equipment lasts.
All three approaches matter. None of them on its own fixes a skills shortage that has been building for years. But the capital piece is the one that compounds slowly and quietly over time, and it is the kind of structural move that shapes where the wider industry is heading well beyond the current cycle.
Why the timing matters
The funding lands at an awkward moment for the broader industry. The Australian Construction Industry Forum is now forecasting a contraction in 2026, a sharp reversal from the cautious optimism of late 2025. Higher fuel costs, renewed inflation, and interest rate uncertainty have softened the outlook.
That makes long-term workforce investment a harder sell and a more important one at the same time. When activity dips, the temptation across the industry is to pull back on training. Apprentice intakes slow. Upskilling gets deferred. Then the next upswing arrives and the same shortage bites again, because the pipeline was left to thin out during the quiet period.
Capital funding that strengthens training infrastructure is, in part, a hedge against exactly that cycle. The facilities outlast the downturn. The capacity is there when demand returns. Whether the RTOs that apply use the money well is the question worth watching, but the logic of investing through a soft patch rather than only during a boom is sound.
The practical read for builders
If you are building in WA, here is what this means on the ground.
You will not see the effect of this grant for a while. Capital projects take time to deliver, and the workers trained in upgraded facilities are months or years from your sites. This is a long-game investment, not a short-term fix for the crew you need next month.
But it is worth knowing where your training providers stand. If the RTO you send apprentices to is applying for capital funding, better facilities and equipment could mean better-prepared workers coming back to you. If you have a view on what the training system is missing, the providers putting in applications are the ones who can act on it. A conversation with them now, while the round is open, is more useful than a complaint later.
| THE GOOD BUILDER TAKE WA keeps spending on its construction workforce while activity softens, and the doubling of this particular program in two years suggests that commitment is holding rather than fading. For an industry that has watched skills pipelines get underfunded and undervalued for decades, sustained investment through a downturn is the part of the story that actually matters. The homes still need building. The workers to build them do not appear on their own. |
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Your Questions Answered:
Q1. What is the Construction Training Fund Capital Grant Program?
A WA Government program, run through the Construction Training Fund, that provides capital funding to eligible private Registered Training Organisations to increase training capacity and improve training quality across the building and construction sector.
Q2. How much funding is available in the 2026-27 round?
$10 million, up from $6 million in 2025-26 and $5 million the year before.
Q3. Who can apply for the grant?
Eligible private RTOs that deliver training to WA’s building and construction workforce. State government entities such as TAFE colleges are not eligible.
Q4. When do applications close?
Applications opened on 22 June 2026 and close at 5pm on Friday 17 July 2026.
Q5. What kinds of projects does the grant prioritise?
Projects supporting the residential housing workforce, clean energy and decarbonisation skills, workforce diversity, modern methods of construction, workforce retention, and expanded training access in regional and remote areas.
Last updated: 24 June 2026
Source: Construction Training Fund 2026-27 Capital Grant Program; Government of Western Australia; prior CTF Capital Grant rounds (2024-25, 2025-26).
The Good Builder provides news and analysis for Australia’s building industry. This article is general in nature and does not constitute professional or financial guidance.
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