Kenya’s construction sector has emerged as one of the most prolific job creators in the economy over the past 18 months, generating an estimated 120,000 direct employment positions between January 2025 and June 2026. The figure, compiled by the National Construction Authority (NCA) from site registration and labour returns data, encompasses roles across the full construction value chain — from civil and structural engineers to artisans, scaffolders, welders, heavy equipment operators, and security personnel — and represents the strongest period of construction employment growth since the original Standard Gauge Railway building phase a decade ago.
Three overlapping government programmes have been the primary engines of this growth. President Ruto’s Affordable Housing Programme, which set a headline target of 200,000 units annually, has alone accounted for approximately 48,000 construction jobs at active sites in Nairobi (Pangani, Shauri Moyo, Park Road), Mombasa (Buxton), Kisumu (Nyalenda), and 14 secondary towns. Road construction and rehabilitation under the Kenya National Highways Authority’s Phase IV programme, covering over 3,200 kilometres of classified roads, accounts for a further 31,000 jobs. The balance is distributed across private commercial developments, county government projects, water infrastructure, and telecommunications tower construction accompanying the 5G rollout.
Skilled Labour in Short Supply
The construction boom has exposed an acute shortage of formally qualified artisans and mid-level construction technicians. NCA data shows that only 34 per cent of workers currently employed on registered construction sites hold a National Industrial Training Authority (NITA) certificate or equivalent qualification. The remaining 66 per cent are informal workers whose skills, though often substantial, are acquired through on-the-job apprenticeship rather than accredited training.
“We have the projects and we have workers who want to work. What we are missing is the middle layer — the certified bricklayers, the qualified electricians, the plumbers who can read drawings,” said James Kamunge, Chairman of the Kenya Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors (KABCEC). “When every developer is competing for the same pool of certified artisans, quality suffers and costs go up.”
The NCA has responded by fast-tracking approval of 14 new construction technology training programmes at polytechnics and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, with the first graduates expected by December 2026. The Ministry of Education has also committed to increasing intake at existing building and civil engineering programmes by 25 per cent in the 2026/2027 academic year, though the lagged nature of technical training means the supply response will take time to materialise.
SGR and the Logistics Dividend
The Standard Gauge Railway has been a catalytic force in the current construction cycle in ways that extend well beyond direct rail investment. The SGR’s passenger numbers reached a record 4.8 million in 2025, and freight volumes have grown sufficiently to anchor a new generation of logistics parks and warehousing hubs at Naivasha’s Special Economic Zone, along the Nairobi-Mombasa corridor, and at the Athi River Inland Container Depot. Construction of these facilities has created a sustained pipeline of work for medium-sized Kenyan contractors that, in earlier infrastructure cycles, would have been lost to Chinese-state firms.
The local content requirements embedded in the NCA’s 2025 revised procurement guidelines have been significant in this regard. Major contractors are now required to source at least 40 per cent of their labour from the county in which a project is located, and to reserve at least 30 per cent of subcontract value for Kenyan-owned firms. The provisions have been imperfectly enforced but have nonetheless shifted a measurable share of project value into local supply chains.
Environmental concerns have not been absent from the conversation. The El Niño aftermath left several construction sites in the Rift Valley and Coast region with drainage and foundation challenges that added cost and time to completions. The NCA has updated its environmental compliance checklist to require flood-risk assessments for all projects in classified high-risk zones — a regulatory adjustment that has added a layer of due diligence but is expected to reduce costly remediation work down the line. For 120,000 Kenyans collecting wages from construction sites, the details of policy debate are secondary. The boom is real, and for now, it is employing them.
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