The project market between standards and reality, or why the industry is ripe for new “rules of the game”
The past year 2025 was neither a year of great optimism nor a year of great disaster for the construction and design industry. It was a year of a more sober assessment of the situation. When it became finally clear that working “as before” is no longer effective, and formal solutions are increasingly dissonant with the real economy, the availability of human resources, and the physical capabilities of business.
This was emphasized in the program “Personality with Serhiy Doyk” by Doctor of Law, President of the National Union of Project Business (NSPS) Viktor Leshchynsky. His assessments were not emotional assessments of a specialist who deeply knows the nuances of the case, but only related to the real state of affairs. After all, we are not talking about individual problems in the field, but about systemic failures that have accumulated over the years and noticeably worsened during the war. “The past year cannot be called either positive or negative. It has become more understandable from the point of view of existing realities. The industry has adapted to the challenges, but the problems have definitely not decreased,” Viktor Leshchynsky noted.
One of the key topics raised during the program is state pricing. At the end of 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers updated the approaches to the formation of estimates for state and municipal property. On paper, there was an increase in salaries and profits, but in practice there were still the same gaps between the standards and the market. “The official estimated salary is about 22,800 hryvnias. The real one is 35-45 thousand hryvnias. And these are not isolated cases, this is the real market,” the president of the NSPS noted.
The shortage of personnel in construction and design has long ceased to be a temporary phenomenon. Customers are often forced to focus on the indicators recommended by the state. And not because these indicators are correct, but because it is much safer in terms of inspections. Therefore, says Viktor Leshchynsky, as a result we get a situation where it is impossible to implement the project qualitatively based on formally correct figures.
A separate layer of problems is digitalization. In Ukraine, this “innovation” is becoming mandatory, but it is not provided with basic conditions. The state is actively transferring processes to an electronic format, but is not creating mechanisms for energy support for business. For small or even medium-sized businesses, generators and inverter systems are hundreds of thousands of hryvnias of additional costs, while for project companies it is also a question of technical ability to work in general. “A project office consumes about 20-30 kW. These are servers, equipment, teams, lighting, life activities, etc. Without a stable power supply, such a model simply will not work,” explains Mr. Leshchynsky. And he adds that in the situation that we all have now, digitalization does not become an effective tool for development, but on the contrary begins to work as a risk factor.
But the most painful problem remains, which not everyone speaks out loud: the Ukrainian design market actually lives without clear “rules of the game”. There are certified specialists, but there are no requirements for companies, for their experience, the professional level of the team, or the ability to perform complex work on no less complex objects. The result is dumping. At Prozorro, the cost of design work is reduced by 2-3 times. Formally, everything is legal, but in fact it becomes a path to loss of quality. “I have not seen a single high-quality project at a dumping price. It is always savings on people, deadlines, and control. And then there are adjustments, delays, and cost overruns during construction,” says the president of the NSPS.
The conversation also discussed how and why the National Union of Design Affairs appeared. According to Viktor Leshchynsky, it was with the realization of the need for change that the transformation of the existing professional association – the National Expert Construction Alliance of Ukraine – began. The Alliance changed its format and mandate, turning into the NSPS. Because it became clear that the problems of expertise are only part of the systemic crisis and that the design market simply requires order.
What exactly is it about? It is definitely not about monopolization or pressure on small businesses. The principle here is clear – quality, not quantity. Membership in the NSPS should be prestigious and correlated with the level of responsibility. The NSPS model is decentralized: regional offices, strong local teams, focus specifically on project organizations without duplicating the functions of other professional communities.
The strategic goal of the NSPS is to create a model of self-regulation of the project market. This is not quick and easy. This is not a one-month process. The transformation will last at least 2 years. But without this, the project industry will continue to remain in a situation of dumping and loss of quality. The industry needs systematic work, and digitalization must go hand in hand with energy sustainability, and the market must use clear rules.
It is in this logic that the NSPS declares itself not as another association, but as an attempt by professionals to make the project market responsible, understandable, and capable of working to rebuild Ukraine, rather than creating and then raking up accumulated problems, which is inefficient from any point of view to waste precious time on.
