Architecture and construction workers work on buildings and other structures. This includes highways, bridges, houses, and buildings. You might create the designs or plans for new structures. Or, you might use the plans to build it or manage the workers on the project.

Some architecture and construction workers do skilled trades, like carpentry, painting, or plumbing. For example, you might do all of the electrical work for a renovated office space.

In the architectural profession, technical and environmental knowledge, design and construction management, and an understanding of business are as important as design. However, the design is the driving force throughout the project and beyond. An architect accepts a commission from a client. The commission might involve preparing feasibility reports, building audits, the design of a building or of several buildings, structures, and the spaces among them. The architect participates in developing the requirements the client wants in the building. Throughout the project (planning to occupancy), the architect coordinates a design team. Structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers and other specialists, are hired by the client or the architect, who must ensure that the work is coordinated to construct the design.

In general, there are three sectors of construction: buildings, infrastructure and industrial. Building construction is usually further divided into residential and non-residential. Infrastructure, also called heavy civil or heavy engineering, includes large public works, dams, bridges, highways, railways, water or wastewater and utility distribution. Industrial construction includes offshore construction (mainly of energy installations), mining and quarrying, refineries, chemical processing, power generation, mills and manufacturing plants.

There are also other ways to break the industry into sectors or markets. For example, Engineering News-Record (ENR), a US-based construction trade magazine, has compiled and reported data about the size of design and construction contractors. In 2014, it split the data into nine market segments: transportation, petroleum, buildings, power, industrial, water, manufacturing, sewer/waste, telecom, hazardous waste, and a tenth category for other projects. ENR used data on transportation, sewer, hazardous waste and water to rank firms as heavy contractors.