The Italian construction system is worth €648.7 billion and employs 3.4 million people, equal to 14% of those employed in Italy. In 2025, the overall production value of the supply chain increased by +0.9%, with growth of +5.7 billion compared to 2024, while the number of employees increased by +3%. This is what emerges from the 2026 Report "The Construction System in Italy" by Federcostruzioni, created in collaboration with Cresme, and presented today during the inaugural conference of the 60th edition of SAIE - The Construction Fair: design, construction, systems, underway at BolognaFiere until 10 October with 567 exhibiting companies, 68 partner associations, 235 conferences and 22 special initiatives.
The trend on international markets was also positive. In 2025, exports from the supply chain reached €64.3 billion, with an increase of 2.1% compared to the previous year and a positive trade balance of 34.7 billion, up 3.5%. Employment is also growing: in 2025 the number of employees will increase overall by +3%, for a total of 3.4 million, with increases of +4.7% in construction and +7.9% in design. Data that confirms the solidity of the sector: between 2019 and 2025, net of inflation, the overall production of the supply chain grew by +33.7%.
The market was mainly supported by public works, which grew by 21% in 2025 and reached €96.6 billion: the sector now represents 41.5% of total investments in construction. The growth is linked in particular to the acceleration of the interventions envisaged by the PNRR, to railway investments and to the works carried out by local authorities, with the capital expenditure of the Municipalities increased in 2025 by 15.3%. Overall, in 2025 investments in construction amounted to 232.6 billion. The housing sector weighs in the opposite direction, down by 15.6%, with new homes at -5% and extraordinary residential maintenance at -18%. The Report thus photographs a progressive recomposition of demand after the strong expansion determined in previous years by incentives for building redevelopment: the weight of interventions on housing decreases and that of infrastructure and public investments grows.
What are the prospects for 2026? The Report indicates a reversal of trend. Investments in construction are expected to grow by 5.6%, once again thanks above all to public works, for which a further increase of 12% is estimated. A recovery in extraordinary residential maintenance is also expected (+3.5%), after the sharp decline in the previous two years. However, the prospects for new homes (-4.5%) and for new private non-residential construction (-3%) remain negative.
The discussion of the numbers of the Federcostruzioni Report, the new housing policies, the Housing Plan, and the strategies for the future were at the center of the inaugural conference of the 60th edition of SAIE, which was attended by Matteo Lepore, Mayor of Bologna, Vincenzo Colla, Vice President of the Emilia-Romagna Region, Emanuele Ferraloro, President Federcostruzioni, Stefano Betti, Vice President ANCE, Rosa Grimaldi, Vice President of BolognaFiere, Ivo Nardella, President of Senaf / Gruppo Tecniche Nuove, Felice Squitieri, Extraordinary Commissioner for the Housing Plan, and Lorenzo Bellicini, Director of CRESME, who presented the data from the Federcostruzioni Report. Also present via video link was the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Matteo Salvini.
"We are not a sum of construction sites, but an industrial system – declared Emanuele Ferraloro, President of Federcostruzioni. After the strong expansion of 2021-2022, the sector has entered a phase of selective normalization, marked by the reduction of construction bonuses and the conclusion of the PNRR. But the end of the PNRR must not represent the end of interventions on our infrastructure networks and on our built environment: housing plan, European and cohesion funds and investments by large companies public sector must be brought back to an organic strategy that affects the entire supply chain: design, materials, systems, construction, innovative services. A stable and medium-long term industrial construction policy is needed, also in terms of incentives: certain in terms of timing, procedures and stability. The priorities remain the regeneration and redevelopment of the building stock, the revision of urban planning regulations, the lack of labor and generational change. systemic and supply chain, capable of accompanying the transformation of the country in the long term and building our future."
SAIE – The Construction Fair: design, construction, systems returns to BolognaFiere from 7 to 10 October 2026 for its 60th edition, confirming itself as a meeting point for companies, professionals, associations and protagonists of the entire supply chain. At the fair there were 567 exhibiting companies, 68 partner associations, 235 training conferences and 22 special initiatives, distributed across four exhibition sectors - Design and Digitalisation, Construction, Systems, Services and Media - and four thematic itineraries dedicated to Infrastructure, Sustainability, Innovation and People at the Centre. Among the new features of the edition are the SAIE Lab | Arenas Live, which bring the contents of the four SAIE Lab | events to the fair On Tours carried out during the year, connecting the territory and the event through technical insights, real cases and solutions on buildings, infrastructures and territory. An edition that celebrates sixty years of history, with an area dedicated to the 60th anniversary celebrations, and looks to the future of the way we design, build, redevelop and manage buildings and infrastructures.
