Construction stumbled according to Glenigan Construction Review

According to the latest Glenigan Construction Review for December 2019, the number of construction projects that started onsite, as well as the number of construction projects being awarded to contractors, fell drastically as a consequence of the uncertainty cast by the Snap General Election.

Going into further detail, and when observing the construction sector over the course of the final quarter of the 2019 year, it was revealed by Glenigan that the sum of each month’s construction contract values came to an average figure of £3915M which is actually 37 per cent lower than the same figure for the final quarter of the 2018 year.

Yet again this sharp decline in total project value can be attributed to weak economic growth which the UK was experiencing at the time in addition to the ceaselessly shifting Brexit deadlines and political uncertainty cast by a sudden December General Election.

Furthermore, the underlying value of construction projects starting onsite over this three month period fell by a proportion of 15 per cent when compared to the three month period which came before it and was actually 19 per cent lower than the final quarter of the year before, showing further evidence of hesitation within the sector at the end of the decade.

Perhaps the category which suffered the greatest fall in value over the course of the fourth quarter was that of major projects, where the total value of all projects averaged at £706M per month which spiralled down even further than the construction sector as a whole by being 69 per cent lower than the same figure from the last quarter of 2018.

Following on from taking a view at each subcategory within the construction sector, a similarly bleak view can be taken for housing which suffered a 26 per cent decline in value, compared with a year ago, in the final quarter of 2019, with the value of all housing construction projects over the three months totalling at £5033M.

As well as this, industrial construction projects, office projects, hotel and leisure projects, health construction projects, education construction projects, community and amenity construction projects, and even civil engineering projects were all down on value when compared with the previous year’s figures, while retail construction was the only subsector to experience any growth in the final quarter of the decade.

To be specific, the total monthly value of civil engineering projects decreased by a proportion of 71 per cent during this three month period, when compared against last year, with the average monthly value measuring at just £1325M.

Moving on, throughout the month of December alone the most successful contractor was actually identified by Glenigan as Multiplex Europe, followed by Murphy, Balfour Beatty, VINCI, and Kier respectively; although it was Morgan Sindall which actually won the highest number of contracts with an astounding 42, while the next closest contractor was Kier after gaining 22 contracts by comparison.

Thankfully though, future projections appear to be brighter in the Glenigan Construction Review after it showed a 52 per cent increase in construction project approvals for the final quarter of 2019 when compared against the previous quarter, with this figure likewise being a proportion of nine per cent higher than the number of approvals given in the final quarter of 2018.

What this ultimately signifies is that the British construction sector, though having stumbled at the final hurdle of the decade, has potential to recover and also prosper in the start of the new decade, with a healthy project pipeline being visible for the coming months.

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