Residential leads construction bounce-back
July 2017

Residential building contracts soared to £2.5billion last month after dipping to £1.7bn in May, leading an overall 12%increase in all construction contracts, according to the latest edition of the Economic & Construction Market Review from industry analyst Barbour ABI. The report adds that four of the top ten biggest projects were in Residential.

Contract values awarded in June across all regions of Great Britain totalled £5.5 billion based on a three-month rolling average, up from the £4.9 billion in May.

London led all regions with 26 per cent of the total construction contract value for June. This was greatly helped by the North Quay Poplar development contract award, worth £800 million, the largest project across all of construction on the month (see figure 1.1).

Looking at construction in June across the UK regions outside of London, the dominance continued across southern England with the South East in second place for construction contract value with £713 million awarded, followed by the South West in joint third place with the North West, each tied at £627 million.

Michael Dall, lead economist at Barbour ABI, said: “The construction sector bounced back after an election-focused month in May, as the residential sector once again performed strongly, continuing the trend of it holding the construction sector steady. However with declines in value from Hotel, Leisure & Sport and in particular Infrastructure, there is continuous pressure on Residential to achieve high values every month.”

“With the Governments increasing focus on raising the levels of major infrastructure projects, it’s surprising to see a lack of development in this sector across June. The anticipation however, is that we will see larger public sector contracts come to the forefront, such as offshore wind farms, energy plants and motorway upgrades as we continue into 2017.”