Most futures studies aim to help people to better prepare for their future by identifying
and examining emerging future issues relevant to them. In the last decade, there have
been a range of futures studies published by individuals and organisations within the
construction sector and wider afield. Despite this, little has been done on synthesising
and classifying the emerging issues and analysing the substantive content of these
studies. A thorough search of futures study reports in construction has been conducted
from which key reports were selected to be examined in detail. Content analysis was
employed to identify emerging future issues which were then used to populate a matrix
showing the relationship between the reports and the issues identified. This yielded 337
emerging issues, both internal and external to the construction industry which were
classified under six major themes, namely ‘technological’, ‘environmental’, ‘social’,
‘economic’, ‘governance’ and ‘construction industry’. Each is then discussed. The key
characteristics of these issues, including the possible inter-connectivities among them
are subsequently explained. The paper is concluded with a brief discourse on our future
research work in this area and the possible associated methodologies to be employed
