Purpose – Architecture and civil engineering graduates now enter an industry where construction project management and spatial information science overlap on almost every project, yet curriculum coverage of this overlap is rarely audited. This study evaluates how Saudi Arabian universities prepare Architecture and Civil Engineering Department (ACED) graduates across these two domains and identifies the specific competencies in which graduates fall short of industry expectations. Design/methodology/approach – We drafted a structured questionnaire, refined it through a reconnaissance survey and expert review, and distributed the final instrument via Google Forms to professionals across academia, consulting, contracting, and client organizations affiliated with ACED. Of 75 returned responses, 70 were retained after data cleaning. We assessed graduate competencies across 44 parameters spanning eight domains on a seven-point Likert scale and applied one-way ANOVA (F-test) at α = 0.05 to test whether perceptions differed by professional background. Findings – Respondents reported moderate to strong agreement (overall Likert score = 6.02 ± 0.37) on graduates’ competencies in critical thinking, discipline knowledge (6.10 ± 0.38), problem-solving (6.24 ± 0.34), communication (6.11 ± 0.30), and ethics and values (6.12 ± 0.29). Teamwork (5.65 ± 0.35) was the weakest domain. Coverage of core spatial science, GIS, surveying, photogrammetry, and remote sensing, remained limited beyond BIM-related parameters. ANOVA indicated no significant differences across professional backgrounds, except for critical thinking (F = 3.939, p = 0.020). Originality/value – This is the first multi-stakeholder competency assessment of ACED graduates in Saudi Arabia and supplies direct, evidence-based input for curriculum redesign that integrates construction project management with spatial information science. The findings are useful for educators, policymakers, and industry leaders working on curricular reform, particularly in collaborative learning and dedicated geospatial training. The framework is portable: it can be extended to other regional contexts and adapted for longitudinal tracking of graduate competency development .
Alsulamy et al. (Mon,) studied this question.