Use of building information modeling has grown from 28% to 71% in the construction industry in the last six years, and the profile of BIM users has also seen a major shift in the last three years, according to a recent McGraw-Hill Construction survey. In the first and second BIM SmartMarket Report research studies, published by McGraw-Hill Construction in 2006 and 2009, architects led the industry in BIM use by a substantial margin. In the most recent study conducted this fall, not only has the gap between players in BIM adoption narrowed significantly from a differential of 16% to one of 7%, but contractors are also now the leading users of BIM. Between 2009 and 2012, the percentage of contractors using BIM increased from 50% to 74%, allowing them to leapfrog over architects, 70% of whom now report using BIM.
Contractors also expect to increase the percentage of projects on which they use BIM in the next two years. While they report growth between 2009 and 2012—with those using BIM on over 60% of their projects growing from 21% to 31% in just two more years—over half say they will be using BIM more broadly by 2014.