Construction industry sees return to growth in April

UK construction industry output increased in April, buoyed by an increase in new work according to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics.

The Office of National Statistics said that output increased by 2.5% compared to March’s figure of a 3.6% decrease. The rise was the largest monthly increase since the beginning of 2014.

New orders saw a rise of 2.9% but looking at the first quarter of 2016 were down 1.2% compared to both Q4 and Q1 in 2015.

The repair and maintenance sector also saw an increase in April of 1.9%.

As suggested in the previous release, the rise in output may be due the seasonal adjustment with Easter falling completely in March for the first time since the series started in 2010.

There was also some good news for the housebuilding industry with private new housing increasing by 2.7% in April. The sector is now at its highest level of £2.2Bn since records started in 2010. This was tempered, however, by a fall in public new housing of 4.4% in comparison to the previous month.

On the year, total housing increased by 0.9% compared with April 2015. The main contributor was private new housing, which increased by 5.8%, offset by public new housing, which decreased by 20.7%. This marked the 12th consecutive period of year-on-year decreases in public new housing.

When compared with the same period last year, construction industry output decreased by 3.7%. In the previous month, the figure was at 4.5%.

Last month’s ONS figures were subject to much scrutiny due to being the only major survey that reported no growth over the first quarter of 2016. The ONS did admit that March’s data would be subject to bigger than usual data revisions.

 

 

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