Developing a Career-Stage Competency Framework for Construction Professionals in the Industry 4.0 Era

This study identifies the key competencies considered important for construction professionals and examines differences in their perceived importance across work-experience groups. A literature review and expert review informed a questionnaire comprising 24 competencies, which was completed by 235 construction professionals in Vietnam. Descriptive statistics, Welch’s ANOVA, Benjamini–Hochberg false-discovery-rate control, Games–Howell comparisons, effect-size estimation, and focused covariate-adjusted sensitivity analyses were used. The results reveal five key findings. Fundamental professional competencies, including work attitude, work motivation, problem-solving, work management, analytical skills, and work discipline, ranked highly across the sample. Digital competencies, including knowledge of modern construction technologies and proficiency in construction software, were also considered important, although several professional and managerial competencies ranked higher. Perceived competency priorities differed significantly across work-experience groups. Respondents with 16–20 years of experience assigned comparatively lower importance to several competency areas, producing a distinctive mid-career priority pattern rather than evidence of lower actual competence. The resulting career-stage competency framework summarizes these experience-differentiated priorities and informs professional development, engineering education, and workforce training. Because the survey is cross-sectional and measures perceived importance rather than proficiency, the framework represents differences among experience groups rather than a longitudinal competency-maturity trajectory.