Employment in the construction sector stood at 1,530,002 workers in 2025, an increase of 4.5% compared to 2024, according to data released this Thursday by the Fundación Laboral de la Construcción.
With these figures, construction consolidates itself as the activity that advances the most from one year to the next, ahead of Industry (4.1%), Services (2.2%), and Agriculture (1.5%), and accounts for 6.9% of the total employed in Spain, according to the report "Radiography of employment in the construction sector 2025", prepared from the Active Population Survey (EPA).
Among the 15 most representative occupations in the sector, the category with the largest volume of professionals (22.5% of the total) is "Masons, stonecutters, stone splitters, stone carvers, and stone engravers". In turn, "Truck drivers" is the occupation with the most women (6.1%) and the one with the highest average age, with 50.6 years, as detailed by the entity in a statement.
"Construction laborer" is the occupation with the highest presence of foreign workers (55%) and the one that concentrates the most young people under 30 years of age (19%), more temporary contracts (37.3%), and a higher percentage of salaried employees (98.8%). The occupation with the highest proportion of foreigners from the European Union (49.1%) is "Plumbers and pipe fitters".
On the other hand, "Painters, paperhangers, and related workers" heads the list of self-employed professionals (52.2%), while "Refrigeration and air conditioning mechanics and installers" leads in the weight of permanent contracts (94%) and in the presence of workers with Vocational Studies (61%), followed very closely by "Construction electricians and related workers", with 60%.
The study by the Construction Industry Observatory, of the Fundación Laboral de la Construcción, also breaks down the information by different socioeconomic categories. Nine out of ten employed in the sector are men, although female incorporation is growing at a much higher rate than male incorporation (15.3% versus 3.5%, respectively).
The authors specify that the average age of employed persons in construction reached 45.1 years in 2025, compared to 42.4 years in 2024, and estimate that in the next decade 22% of the workforce will retire. This forecast highlights "the need for generational replacement", as the increase in young workers "is not enough to mitigate the loss of more veteran workers".
The report also states that there were 386,507 foreign employed persons in the sector, 25.3% of the total, a proportion clearly higher than that of the economy as a whole (15.7%) and which represents an increase of 10% compared to 2024. Three-quarters of these professionals come from countries outside the European Union.Regarding the educational level, more than half of the workers (51.8%, 792,766 employed) have education equivalent to the first stage of Secondary Education or lower, while three out of four (1,148,539 professionals) are salaried employees.
Regarding the duration of contracts, 85.7% of salaried employees in construction have permanent contracts, compared to 14.3% with temporary contracts, and almost all work full-time (1,468,183 workers, 96% of the total).