Help People See—and Build—Their Future
BuildingXperience is being developed as a national applied-learning system for Construction, Infrastructure and Engineering. It combines immersive career discovery, hands-on Learning Labs, industry mentorship, and clear pathways into education, apprenticeships, credentials, and work.
BuildingXperience Institute is the nonprofit educational organization developing the learning model for the Construction, Infrastructure and Engineering sector of Experience Careers. The model is designed to connect immersive experiences in Experience Careers Centers with continuing digital learning and delivery through qualified education, apprenticeship, employer, and workforce partners nationwide.
It Takes an Industry to Build a Future
Every building begins with people who see a different part of the whole. Architects imagine it. Engineers make it work. Contractors, skilled trades professionals, manufacturers, and technology teams turn plans into the places where people live, learn, heal, work, and gather.
A career in this industry is built much the same way. People need to see the work, understand how the roles connect, experience meaningful parts of it, and learn from people who know what success actually requires.
BuildingXperience brings together the people who do the work, the people who teach it, and the partners who can help make it accessible. Together, they can turn real projects and expertise into experiences that help people discover where they might belong, try meaningful aspects of the work, receive guidance from trusted professionals, and begin moving toward the next pathway that fits.
Within Experience Careers Centers, that collaboration will come to life through the Construction, Infrastructure and Engineering sector and its Learning Labs. Beyond the Centers, BuildingXperience Institute can extend the model through qualified education and training partners, including colleges, universities, apprenticeship programs, employer academies, and workforce organizations nationwide.
Together, we can make the building industry visible, believable, and reachable to people who may never have imagined a place within it.
THE NATIONAL NEED
America Needs More People Ready to Build
The challenge is not simply filling open jobs. It is helping people discover the breadth of building careers, understand what different roles actually involve, make better-informed decisions about where they may fit, and enter education or training with clearer expectations and stronger preparation.
A Workforce Gap With Visible Consequences
Professionals across construction, infrastructure, and engineering turn plans into the places and systems communities depend on—homes, schools, hospitals, transportation networks, energy systems, data centers, workplaces, and public spaces. Every project requires people with different forms of knowledge and responsibility, from architects, engineers, estimators, and project managers to superintendents, technicians, inspectors, and skilled craft professionals.
Yet employers continue to report that qualified people are difficult to find. In the latest completed national workforce survey from the Associated General Contractors of America and NCCER, 92% of construction firms that were hiring said they were having difficulty filling positions. Fifty-seven percent reported that available candidates lacked essential skills or the appropriate credentials, and 45% said workforce shortages had delayed projects.
The need extends well beyond a short-term hiring cycle. Associated Builders and Contractors estimates that the construction industry must attract approximately 349,000 workers in 2026 simply to keep labor supply aligned with anticipated demand. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects an average of approximately 649,300 openings each year in construction and extraction occupations from 2024 through 2034, together with another 186,500 annual openings across architecture and engineering occupations. These openings reflect both continued growth and the need to replace people who retire or leave their occupations.
One Visible Consequence: Slower Homebuilding
The consequences reach beyond individual employers. A 2025 study released by the National Association of Home Builders and the Home Builders Institute estimated that skilled-labor shortages added an average of 1.98 months to single-family construction schedules. The study associated those delays with approximately 19,000 fewer homes built in 2024 and an estimated $10.8 billion in annual economic impact.
Context: Labor availability is one of several factors affecting construction schedules, housing production, and cost. Financing, land, materials, permitting, regulation, and market conditions also matter; the study estimates the portion associated with skilled-labor constraints.
Nearly Two Additional Months
Estimated average addition to single-family construction schedules.
19,000 Fewer Homes
Estimated 2024 production impact
$10.8 billion annually
Estimated economic effect
Sources: AGC–NCCER 2025 Workforce Survey; Associated Builders and Contractors 2026 Workforce Shortage Model; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024–2034 Occupational Outlook; NAHB/HBI 2025 Construction Labor Market Study.
The Industry Is Already Looking for Better Pathways
Construction firms are responding. In the same AGC–NCCER survey, 42% had initiated or increased spending on training and professional development, while 52% were engaging with career programs in high schools, colleges, or career and technical education institutions.
That activity points to an important conclusion:
The industry needs more than additional applicants. It needs stronger pathways that help people see the work, test whether it fits, prepare for its expectations, and move confidently toward education, apprenticeship, credential preparation, or employment.
HOW IT WORKS
BuildingXperience turns real projects and industry expertise into a guided progression from career discovery to a credible next step.
People Need More Than Information
People rarely choose a future because they read a job description. A role can match someone’s abilities on paper and still not fit the work they want to do every day. Whether choosing a first pathway, considering a new role, or changing careers, people need opportunities to see the work, understand how roles and systems connect, try meaningful parts of it, and receive guidance from people who know the path.
BuildingXperience makes the industry tangible. Participants see how real projects take shape and how the people who plan, design, build, inspect, operate, and supply them contribute in different ways. They begin working with plans, digital models, products, systems, and realistic project scenarios—helping them assess not only whether the industry interests them, but where within it they may fit best.
Within Experience Careers Centers, immersive sector experiences and Learning Labs connect career discovery with supervised physical practice. Beyond the Centers, BuildingXperience Institute is designed to work through qualified education, apprenticeship, employer, and workforce partners to extend learning and connect participants to the next pathway that fits.
The result is a better-informed decision about fit and, when a pathway is right, a stronger handoff to formal education, apprenticeship, credential preparation, employer training, or supervised field experience—with participants moving forward with clearer purpose, better preparation, and greater confidence.
BuildingXperience organizes that progression into five connected stages:
The BuildingXperience Journey
THE CRITICAL BRIDGE
From Career Discovery to Guided Practice
The five-stage journey provides the overall framework. In practice, a participant might follow a real project from concept through operation and see how designers, contractors, craft professionals, manufacturers, inspectors, and operators depend on one another. The participant might then use a plan or digital model to solve a realistic challenge and try a related task under supervision. Each step turns observation into participation and gives the participant a more realistic basis for deciding what to pursue next.
BuildingXperience is designed to begin the journey through immersive sector experiences and Learning Labs, then connect participants to the appropriate next step—formal education, apprenticeship, credential preparation, employer training, or supervised field experience. When a pathway fits, participants can move forward with clearer purpose, a more realistic understanding of expectations, and an initial foundation they can continue to build.
Through these experiences, participants begin to develop:
What Participants Begin to Develop
LEARNING ARCHITECTURE
Learning Built from Real Work
The process of constructing, renovating, and operating Experience Careers facilities can itself become part of the learning system.
As Experience Careers campuses move through development, construction, renovation, and operation, selected phases of the work can be documented—from planning and coordination through installation, inspection, commissioning, and future upgrades. With appropriate permissions, the people who design, approve, supply, build, inspect, commission, and operate the facilities can explain what is being done, why decisions are made, how systems interact, and how safety, quality, and performance are verified.
BuildingXperience Institute can transform that approved project record into connected forms of learning: project and career stories, instructional videos, product and system demonstrations, interactive digital models and simulations, supervised Learning Lab activities, and modules for qualified education and training partners. Where appropriate, manufacturer technical specialists and experienced installers can help explain product requirements, installation methods, safety considerations, and quality checks in the context of an actual project and the wider system it must serve.
A participant might first see a system installed and commissioned by experienced professionals, then examine the plans and installation sequence, practice making key decisions in a project-derived interactive digital environment, and later apply related concepts or tasks under supervision. Because the learning is drawn from Experience Careers facilities, participants may be able to explore digitally the same buildings and systems they can see on campus, revisit them from different roles, and understand how one decision affects the broader project.
One real project can support many learning pathways—from discovery and understanding to guided practice, capability development, and advancement.
From Project to Learning System
01
Capture the Project
Real work becomes
source material for learning
02
Add Expert Context
Practitioners explain roles, methods, and decisions
03
Build the Learning
Source material becomes guided learning
04
Practice Digitally and Physically
Explore, decide, solve,
and apply
05
Connect to the Next Step
Move toward the pathway that fits
The learning does not end when construction does. Operations, maintenance, upgrades, renovations, and future projects can continue expanding and refreshing the learning system.
THE EXPERIENCE CAREERS MULTIPLIER
From Early Curiosity to Lifelong Capability
BuildingXperience is designed to be more than a one-time visit or stand-alone course. At full national scale, Experience Careers is designed to host millions of K–12 student visits each year while also serving career changers, veterans, educators, working professionals, and lifelong learners. With the Construction, Infrastructure and Engineering sector embedded in every Center, that reach can turn one-time exposure into repeated, age-appropriate engagement with the building industry.
A Relationship That Can
Deepen Over Time
A child might first discover why buildings need different systems and meet the people who make them work. Later, that participant could return to compare roles, solve realistic project challenges, continue online between visits, learn from mentors, practice under supervision, and move toward education, apprenticeship, employer training, or another pathway that fits. As the experience deepens, technical and project understanding can grow alongside teamwork, communication, leadership, strategic thinking, and ethical judgment.
A Learning System
That Can Keep Advancing
Every new Experience Careers facility, renovation, technology upgrade, and operational project can expand a living library of real projects and building knowledge. The same approved source material can support age-appropriate exploration, instructional videos, interactive digital models and simulations, Learning Lab activities, educator resources, programs delivered through qualified partners, and continuing workforce development—allowing the learning to grow with the industry as well as the participant.
Experience Careers is designed to provide the scale, continuity, guidance, shared infrastructure, and a continuing stream of real projects. BuildingXperience can transform those projects, systems, and practitioner expertise into applied learning. Together, they can carry project-derived learning across ages, locations, and stages of a career.
COLLABORATE
Help Build the Learning System
BuildingXperience will be strongest when the people who do the work, teach it, supply the systems, and connect learners to real pathways help shape how the industry is represented.
BuildingXperience Institute welcomes exploratory conversations with contractors; design and engineering firms; skilled trades professionals; manufacturers and suppliers; owners and operators; public agencies; educational, apprenticeship, workforce, and research organizations; creative and technology partners; and philanthropic supporters.
Contribute Real Work
Help identify projects, installations, systems, decisions, and milestones that can become approved learning source material.
Share Technical Expertise
Help explain roles, methods, coordination, safety, quality, product requirements, and system performance.
Build and Validate the Learning
Help translate source material into accurate instructional videos, interactive digital models, simulations, Learning Lab activities, and instructional modules—and help evaluate whether the learning works as intended.
Extend Access and Pathways
Help expand access, deliver learning through qualified programs, and connect participants to education, apprenticeship, credential preparation, employer training, and supervised field experience.
Each collaboration would be developed with appropriate permissions, defined responsibilities, and technical and educational review.