As Saudi Arabia's largest real estate developers move from construction to operations, executives say the kingdom's services sector must expand quickly to keep pace.

Speaking at MEED's Shaping Mega Projects conference in Riyadh on 28 September, Dale Chadwick, acting chief executive officer of King Salman Park Foundation, said that finding enough people with the right skills to run newly completed assets was the next major hurdle.

"The service side of the industry here has to ramp up so quickly," he said. "The resource has to ramp up. Capability has to ramp up. These assets are huge, and to mobilise the number of people and the right skill set really is the next challenge."

King Salman Park has awarded 95% of the contracts for its first two phases and is now engaging operators. Chadwick said the foundation had agreed how its operations would be structured. He described the transition as "a challenge that we haven't really traversed yet".

Red Sea Global is further along on its delivery journey. Ben Edwards, the developer's group head of cost, commercial and procurement, said the developer was nearing completion of phase one of The Red Sea destination and would open more hotels on Shura Island before the end of the year. The airport, utilities and school are already operating, and a hospital opened last week.

"We're well into operations now," said Edwards.

He credited the construction management approach Red Sea Global adopted for its hotels. Under it, each project was procured as separate packages, giving the client greater control over the supply chain, quality and health and safety.

"There was a degree of scepticism across the market and within the kingdom about that delivery model," he said. "We've actually proved our critics wrong. It's worked really well for us, and we will continue to use that model going forwards."

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Diriyah is opening assets while about 74,000 workers remain on site each day. Mohamed Saad, president of Diriyah Company's development arm DevCo, said the developer had awarded about SR130bn ($34.7bn) of contracts to date.

The Ministry of Culture has moved into its new headquarters at the project. Diriyah is also preparing to hand over its first residential community, The Residences. Saad said the company had surrounded the community with landscaping and public realm so residents would not feel they were living on a construction site.

"Planning ahead is extremely important," he said. "We cannot expect that Diriyah will open in one day. All these assets will open gradually over the years."

Saad said the move into operations was creating significant opportunities for mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) contractors, fit-out contractors and facility managers.

"This is the next phase to come," he said. "We are now in the middle of construction, but very soon more assets will come, and we need operators and facility managers."

Chadwick said the industry should also make wider use of prefabrication. He pointed to the large number of hotel rooms the kingdom plans to deliver before it hosts the 2034 Fifa World Cup. "Modular panelisation and prefab is definitely the way to go," he said.