Glenigan’s forecast for the civil engineering sector

According to the Glenigan Construction Forecast for 2020 and 2021, the British civil engineering sector is set to drastically decline after a period of sustained growth from high value infrastructure projects such as HS2 and Crossrail.

Specifically, Glenigan’s figures suggest that by the end of 2019 the total value of underlying civil engineering project starts will have increased by an impressive proportion of 22 per cent, with this growth continuing to an extend over the course of 2020 to leave the increase in value at five per cent, whereas by the end of 2021 there will be no net increase or decrease.

Glenigan have attributed this trend to recent projects such as HS2, Thames Tideway, Hinkley Point, and Crossrail all beginning on site, ending the pending phase of their contracts and therefore what can also be classed as their underlying value, while the sustained growth over 2020 can be predicted as a result of increased water utilities investment from 2020 onwards.

The newly appointed majority Conservative Government has made various pledges in regard to utilities and services which will require the skills of civil engineers, with these utilities and services relating to water and broadband, and although these projects will allow the civil engineering sector to grow over the course of 2020 they will not have the same high value as HS2, for example.

It is strange, however, that the civil engineering sector would experience not net growth in 2021 when considering that Highways England’s development programme will be starting to gain momentum, with 2021 making the commencement of projects such as the Stonehenge Tunnel.

This limbo, in terms of growth, may be a product however of the anticipation of the civil engineering sector head of the third runway development project at Heathrow Airport, which is expected to commence two years later in 2023.

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