Surveys and socio-professional studies carried out at national and international levels contribute to a better understanding of the lighting retrofit process. Within the framework of the International Energy Agency Task 50 - Advanced lighting solutions for retrofitting buildings- and its subtask C1 focusing on the analysis of workflows and needs, an online survey on lighting retrofit was initiated in December 2013.After 9 months, more than 1000 answers were collected. The survey provides clear insights about the workflow of building professionals and leads to a better understanding of their needs in terms of computer method and tools.One of the main outcomes of the survey is that retrofitting strategies used in practice essentially focus on electric lighting actions such as of luminaires replacement and the use of controls. Generally, daylighting strategies are not rated as the highest priority. The results also indicate that practitioners mainly rely on their own experience and rarely involve external consultants in the lighting retrofit process. Furthermore, the survey results suggest that practitioners are interested in user-friendly tools allowing quick evaluations of their project, with a good compromise between cost and accuracy, and producing reports that can be directly presented to their client.The survey also emphasized that the main barriers in using simulation tools are essentially their complexity and the amount of time it takes to perform a study. Practitioners are keen to use tools at preliminary design stage and would like to be able to estimate the cost and other key figures (energy consumption and lighting levels). The paper concludes with recommendations for the building software developers to address the needs of practitioners in a more suitable way.