How local leaders in Austin and beyond are using ‘infrastructure academies’ to address their workforce needs

The last few years have seen a surge in infrastructure investment across the country. Together, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are pumping more than $1 trillion in federal funding across a variety of transportation, water, energy, and broadband projects, among other climate-focused improvements. This spike in funding has come with an enormous opportunity and challenge: hiring, training, and retaining a generation of talent to advance these projects across transportation departments, water utilities, and other state and local entities. 

With almost 17 million workers currently constructing, operating, and maintaining the country’s infrastructure (and the potential for 1.5 million new jobs annually), there are many shoes to fill. Connecting more and different workers to careers in the infrastructure space—including younger individuals, women, people of color, and others historically overlooked or excluded—also has the potential to expand quality career pathways, which can offer higher pay, pose lower formal educational barriers to entry, and present additional benefits compared to other jobs nationally.  

Despite this opportunity, many state and local leaders are struggling to harness federal funding in ways that address both project needs and workforce development needs. Infrastructure owners and operators do not always coordinate with education and training providers, for instance, and the latter do not always understand how projects are funded, staffed, or ultimately executed. Yet a new collaborative strategy is emerging in different regions to help bridge these gaps: “infrastructure academies,” which serve as place-based destinations where employers and other workforce development partners collaborate to support prospective workers entering infrastructure careers, with an eye toward driving greater economic equity.  

Building off a 2018 Brookings report that profiled the newly launched DC Infrastructure Academy, this piece aims to further contextualize and demystify what these academies are attempting to do by focusing on a new example in Austin, Texas. The details matter for how these academies are structured, who is involved in their creation, and the extent to which they are even addressing these workforce gaps. But Austin’s infrastructure academy is not just an ad hoc experiment; through its ongoing design and implementation, it can help inform how other regional leaders may consider launching similar approaches.  

What are infrastructure academies? 

Preparing workers for infrastructure careers relies on a combination of efforts among public and private employers, workforce development boards, educational institutions, labor groups, community-based organizations, and other entities. Work-based learning opportunities, including apprenticeships and internships, are especially important for many workers in the skilled trades, who tend to develop knowledge and experience on the job. For example, workers interested in pursuing a career as a water treatment operator may rely on classroom instruction at a community college, receive on-the-job training at a water utility, and gain supportive services (e.g., transportation to a worksite) from a nonprofit group as they earn needed credentials and grow their competencies over time. 

Navigating such educational and training pathways can pose barriers to entry for prospective infrastructure workers. The siloed planning, lack of communication, and limited community outreach among infrastructure employers can also perpetuate hiring and training difficulties. However, the emergence of sector strategies—coordinated plans and programming among employers and workforce intermediaries to target specific industry needs—is helping these gaps. And when combined with other place-based strategies (including local hire and apprenticeship utilization requirements), leaders are addressing their infrastructure workforce needs head-on.  

Infrastructure academies embody both sector and place-based strategies by serving as a single destination for workers, employers, and educators to drive more coordinated infrastructure workforce development. At a basic level, they aim to introduce more students and job seekers to infrastructure careers through targeted coursework and applied learning opportunities. Although their specific design and reach vary, these academies can be located in one physical building, where prospective workers—particularly the out-of-work and other disadvantaged individuals—can quickly access training and supportive services.  

The DC Infrastructure Academy (DCIA) represents one of the first examples of this type of effort. Launched in 2018, DCIA is overseen by Washington, D.C.’s Department of Employment Services (DOES) and housed in a previously vacant elementary school in the city’s historically disadvantaged Ward 8 (and it will soon be relocated in a new, expanded facility). While DOES helps run DCIA, a variety of employers support training and potential job placement, including Pepco, Washington Gas, and DC Water. So far, DCIA has helped train more than 4,600 residents (and counting) for infrastructure careers, pulling talent across many different demographics.  

Examining the Austin Infrastructure Academy 

Austin is now blazing forward with its own infrastructure academy. Workforce Solutions Capital Area (WFSCA)—the workforce development board serving Austin and Travis County—has spearheaded this effort alongside other planning activities, including a labor and demand forecast and strategy plan for the mobility and infrastructure sector. This work was led by CivicSol, an advisory services firm based in Austin. That forecast, combined with conversations among regional leaders, has centered infrastructure as a key area of growth and opportunity for residents. Austin’s mobility and infrastructure sector already employs over 222,000 workers—the area’s second-largest sector, ahead of both health care and advanced manufacturing—and is projected to add 10,000 new jobs annually through 2040. The fact that most of these workers (60%) are earning above the region’s prevailing wage ($22 per hour) is attractive too. 

While still in the design phase, the Austin Infrastructure Academy aims to serve as “a central hub to integrate recruitment, comprehensive and unified training, and wraparound service support” for workers entering infrastructure careers, with a particular focus on economic equity. This includes aligning training programs with in-demand skills (e.g., for transit operators, mechanics, and engineers); helping facilitate job placement; and evaluating outcomes and performance over time. WFSCA is the academy’s administrator, but multiple other partners have been involved, including project sponsors, industry associations, community-based organizations, and training providers. Texas Mutual Insurance Company and Google.org made significant early financial contributions to support the Academy’s design. Another key partner, Austin Community College, will dedicate space for the Academy on their new campus in Southeast Travis County. Additionally, the Austin City Council has already greenlit funding for this effort, and Austin Community College is already supporting access to the Academy’s services at its Riverside Campus—speaking to the evolving number of activities involved in the Academy’s conception and implementation. 

Indeed, WFSCA and other leaders have embarked on several steps to both launch and sustain the Academy. Starting in spring 2023, they launched a sector partnership and leadership council to coordinate planning, in addition to conducting additional research and holding roundtable discussions with employers such as JE Dunn and AECOM. In the following months, they held additional meetings, developed more strategies, and visited other regions—including Washington, D.C. and Phoenix—that are testing similar approaches. These activities led to City Council approval and seed funding for the Academy at a council meeting in October 2024. The sector partnership is now ramping up outreach and engagement with more employers and educational partners. 

In this way, the Academy’s mission isn’t just about the here and now, such as filling immediate hiring needs or other short-term positions tied to the IIJA and IRA. Instead, it seeks to strengthen regional collaboration and experimentation over time among workforce development leaders, employers, educational institutions, and other stakeholders in service of a long-term talent pipeline.  

Learning from Austin: Expanding innovative infrastructure workforce development across other regions   

Although still evolving in real time, the Austin Infrastructure Academy is emblematic of how the region is redefining partnerships, as well as the value proposition that workforce boards are bringing to the table during the current infrastructure moment and beyond. There is a need for durable, place-based sector strategies across the country, and examples like that of Austin are setting the stage for this work to happen over time.  

As many regions, including Austin, are still navigating new federal infrastructure funding opportunities, the time is ripe to continue testing stronger collaborations among employers, educators, and other workforce development leaders to support more equitable, quality career pathways. But leaders in these regions often do not know where to start, despite the reams of information and federal technical guidance that have come out over the last couple years. In Austin’s case, a few essential steps have made such collaborations and experiments possible: 

• Proactive local leadership: The commitment of local leaders, such as Austin Mayor Kirk Watson and Travis County Judge Andy Brown, set the stage for greater collaboration and created a sense of urgency to advance this work. Their voices amplified these efforts across the region, signaling to all partners the need to unite and get this done. Moreover, the city’s financial contributions were instrumental—without this support, the initiative would still be just an idea.       
• An emphasis on sector partnerships: Consistent and robust employer engagement is crucial for developing effective workforce strategies. Workforce development boards are uniquely situated in communities to establish and manage industry sector partnerships within an academy-like setting. By actively involving employers, workforce development boards can tailor training programs to meet the specific skills needed for the jobs those employers are hiring for. This collaboration also enables boards to expand programs in areas where industries face critical talent shortages.  
• Sustained public workforce funding: Consistent public funding is essential to turning an imagined academy into reality. Building a talent pipeline is not a 12-month project; sustained public funding is a long-term commitment to growing future workers from within the community. For example, to meet the demands and fulfill the promise of these major infrastructure investments, Austin must train an additional 4,000 individuals in this sector annually. So it is leveraging the entire mobility and infrastructure training ecosystem, which includes 52 providers across the region. While the Austin Infrastructure Academy will have a physical location, its primary role will be to serve as a hub—creating multiple training pathways that can guide participants toward other providers within the ecosystem. With sustainable funding for training, capacity-building, and support services, it can deliver on that promise. 

Looking ahead 

The emergence of infrastructure academies such as the one being developed in Austin represents a powerful shift toward place-based, collaborative workforce development strategies. These academies are not just about addressing the immediate hiring needs tied to unprecedented federal infrastructure investments—they are about creating long-term solutions that strengthen regional economies and create equitable, high-quality career pathways. By focusing on proactive local leadership, sustained public funding, and industry sector partnerships, Austin’s model can serve as a guide for other regions looking to seize similar opportunities.