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According a report on the British Constructional Steelwork Association’s website, the average cost per square metre of a commercial building with a steel frame and floor has fallen from nearly £170 two years ago to £113 today.
An equivalent building with concrete frame and floors costs £160 per square metre today, down from nearly £200 two years ago.
The figures are derived from a cost study conducted by Davis Langdon and are tracked using government cost indices for two types of commercial buildings: a typical regional office block in Manchester and prestige company headquarters in London.
The BCSA was swift to point out the increasing price differential between steel and concrete. “This is the biggest gap between the relative costs of steel and concrete that there has ever been, and we have carried out the study every year since 1993,” said Alan Todd, BCSA’s marketing development director.
Government statistics from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills are used to track prices over time of the main components of steel and concrete building frames and can be seen in the Raw Material Costs Relative to Inflation, and Constructed Component Costs Relative to Inflation graphs.
Detailed results are at: www.steelconstruction.org/compare
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