Will a university education help you buy a house?

“Right now, we need an additional 90,000 construction workers to address the skills shortages being experienced if we are to build the 240,000 new homes (1.2 million homes over next five years) that Australia desperately needs,” Martin said.

The managing director said it was disappointing that for the past three decades, “Australia’s school system has pushed uni, uni, uni, and encouraged only those not as apparently academically gifted into trades”.

But, she believes that “in the midst of the cost-of-living crisis, young Australians need to realise that completing a trade in under four years, coming out debt free and with the potential to earn very well, is a first-choice career in Australia right now”.

As well as boosting Australia’s property prospects, she also sees it as the “best choice” for young people to earn a good wage, run their own business, and even to get on the property ladder in their 20s and early 30s.

Arguing that governments, schools, the media and industry “need to start talking up, not down, a trade qualification”, Martin considers construction “a leading career and lifestyle option with financial and business opportunities”.

Further to this, Martin has pointed out the absence of a HECS debt, the high demand for qualified trades, the ability to be your own boss, working outdoors away from a desk and the development of lifelong skills that can be applied when building or renovating one’s own home as just some of the benefits to a career in construction.