Builders hopeful a wind down of Melbourne's Big Build will bring tradies back

As Melbourne's mega builds start to wind down, there's hope skilled tradespeople will return to regional areas to fill a construction jobs gap.

Hundreds of regional tradies were lured to the city by higher government wages to work on the West Gate and Metro Tunnel projects.

As those Victorian government projects near completion, construction industry leaders are hopeful labourers will return to the regions rather than seek work in Queensland, where building activity is supercharged ahead of the Brisbane Olympics in 2032.

The Victorian government has a draft target of building more than 448,000 new homes across regional and rural Victoria by 2051.

Willing to move

On an average day, Traralgon builder Jye Neilson oversees between 200 and 500 contractors across multiple construction si