The fourth annual Build Digital survey reveals an Irish construction sector transitioning from experimental adoption to pragmatic, operational-led transformation. Fueled by the national BIM mandate and a drive for efficiency, the 2025 results—now accessible via an interactive dashboard—highlight significant progress in design and planning, while signalling the industry’s next major hurdle: Embedding digital integration across the entire project lifecycle.
Build Digital survey
Digitalisation across Ireland’s construction and built environment sector continues to progress, as highlighted by the release of the latest Build Digital 2025 Annual Survey results, now available through the 2025 Annual Survey Results Dashboard. Now in its fourth year, the survey has become an established benchmark for tracking digital adoption in Ireland, with four consecutive years of data enabling clearer insight into sector-wide trends, maturity, and impact.
Operational focus driving transformation
The 2025 findings show that digital transformation is being driven primarily by pragmatic operational imperatives, with organisations focused on improving efficiency and the quality of project delivery rather than pursuing disruptive innovation. This reflects a shift from early-stage adoption towards more structured and outcome-driven implementation.
Alongside this, the survey confirms that the Irish Building Information Modelling (BIM) mandate is a key external driver of adoption, with 72.2% of respondents identifying the mandate as a key motivator, alongside strong influence from client and project partner demand. These external factors are playing a critical role in accelerating adoption across the sector, reinforcing the influence of policy and procurement in shaping digital behaviours.
Early-stage adoption remains dominant
A continued focus on early-stage digital deliverables is evident, with experience concentrated in areas such as capturing and representing information, planning and design, and simulation and quantification. However, more advanced uses of BIM—particularly those extending into construction delivery, operations, and information integration—remain less widespread, highlighting an ongoing challenge in achieving full lifecycle adoption.
Despite these challenges, the survey highlights a positive trend: The introduction of BIM and formalised information management practices is driving improved behaviours within project teams, supporting better collaboration even where broader capability gaps remain.
Accessing the data
The 2025 Annual Survey Results Dashboard provides enhanced access to these insights, enabling industry stakeholders to explore the findings in greater depth and supporting more informed, evidence-based decision-making.
Commenting on the results, Dr Clare Eriksson, Build Digital Director, said, “The findings reinforce that digital transformation across the built environment and construction sector is now well established, but it is being driven by practical, operational needs rather than ambition alone. The challenge ahead is to build capability—ensuring that organisations are supported to move beyond early-stage adoption and embed digital approaches across the full project lifecycle.”
Looking ahead
As the sector continues to evolve, the survey underscores that while adoption is now embedded, the next phase of digital transformation will depend on strengthening capability, extending adoption across the project lifecycle, and supporting more consistent implementation of structured information management practices.