The UK construction industry continued to show signs of improvement in July with the number of contract awards increasing significantly according to new data from industry analysts Barbour ABI.
The fresh insights show that the value of construction awards in July had risen to £6.3bn which is more than double than the £3.1bn awarded in June and substantially higher than May’s 1.6bn.
July saw not only an increase in the value of construction awards, but the number of awards had also risen by 80% from June to 860. Which is an encouraging growth following the Coronavirus pandemic.
The report also showed that every sector within the UK industry saw a minimum 33% growth in July compared to the previous month and some sectors grew by a massive 98%. Infrastructure led the growth with an increase of 75.4% with residential construction growing by 65.9% and education construction contracts rose by 43.5%.
As expected, London led the way taking an 18.5% share of all UK contracts, followed closely by Scotland with 17.1% and the South East region of England seeing a 12.8% share of contracts.
The UK construction industry will play a key role in building the UK economy post-COVID-19 and the government’s commitment to support the industry will help this continued growth.
The construction industry has been placed at the heart of prime minister, Boris Johnson’s plan with the £5 billion ‘New Deal’ to ‘build build build’ to level-up Britain’s infrastructure and skills, fuel economic growth across the UK, and bring the UK out of the coronavirus economic downturn.
Chief economist with Barbour ABI and AMA Research, Tom Hall said, “While the economy entered a recession, the construction industry has seen significant increases in activity over the last two months. This could potentially be due to the restarting of activity that had stalled in previous months. A strong planning pipeline could suggest the industry will continue to strengthen but at what rate remains to be seen.”
Just as it did after the Second World War, the construction industry is set to play a vital role in driving economic recovery and as the vast majority of the building materials are manufactured in the UK, the building supplies market should remain strong.