Australia is failing to produce enough home-grown engineers and has an unbalanced workforce in the sector, carrying potential future risk, according to an industry report.
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The Engineers Australia state of the profession report will be published in Canberra on Wednesday.
It shows that 70 per cent of new starters are born overseas.
The number of boys studying advanced maths at senior high school dropped from 15.9 per cent in 2001 to 11.5 per cent in 2015 while girls studying intermediate maths dropped from 30.9 to 20.6 per cent.
"There are serious and unnecessary risks associated with this situation," the report says.
"Australia must do more to produce engineers, especially if it is to meet national ambitions to become a more productive and innovative nation.
"There has been a substantial fall in the number of school students accepting places in university engineering courses in each of the past two years and this will soon follow with an alarming drop in course completions, which will lead to a broken pipeline of future engineers."
Engineers Australia president John McIntosh said there's an urgent need for governments to implement policies and programs that address the problem.
"We are saying to governments: make sure your policies foster a well-trained and qualified engineering workforce to meet these challenges," he said.
"This includes action on increasing our young people's uptake of science, technology, engineering and maths subjects."
The report also shows that only 12.4 per cent of Australian engineers are women. It says the lack of gender diversity starts with an "alarmingly low number" of girls studying science and maths.
"From the male-dominated courses grows a male-dominated profession, which is unsustainable given our national ambitions," the report says.
Engineers Australia says migration is needed to maintain critical numbers, but current policies don't take into account the skills required for new arrivals to be fully competent.
"Too many talented engineers come to Australia but fail to add to the nation's capability," the report says.
"Only 57 per cent of overseas-born male engineers and 45 per cent of overseas-born female engineers find engineering-related employment.
"We believe the skilled migration system needs to be overhauled to focus on building Australia's engineering capability, rather than just delivering a general skills uplift."
Engineers Australia infrastructure spokesman Chris Warnock said governments were contributing to the problem through fragmented planning and political decision making.
"It takes 10 years to create an effective engineer," he said.
"With infrastructure planning tied to a three- or four-year political cycle we're seeing confidence in the profession undermined when newly elected governments rip up contracts for major projects.
"Without a pipeline of students, engineers and projects the innovation agenda we're all talking about won't become a reality."
Engineers Australia warned a Senate committee of a looming skills shortage in 2012.
A spokesman said an estimated 6 per cent of projects since then had failed to go ahead due to a shortage of qualified engineers and others incurred a 20 per cent price premium to proceed.
