According to data collected by the Builders’ Conference, the total value of construction contracts signed in the UK in September was £3.37bn – somewhat below the £4bn recent monthly average.
August had seen the total reach a record £11.26bn, thanks to the signing of £6.6bn of civil engineering contracts for the HS2 high speed rail project.
The contractor wining the most work in September, and therefore the BCLive league table victor, was Galliford Try, which picked up 12 contracts during the month with a combined value of £269.7m.
Sisk was in second place, with three contracts, totalling £222.6m.
In third was Willmott Dixon, whose £203.4m of new orders came from 15 separate contracts.
Only Morgan Sindall won more pieces of work than Willmott Dixon, bagging 16 contracts, with a total value of £101.3m.
Overall, housing-related projects contributed more than 40% of the monthly total, with £1.41bn. Schools, colleges and universities added a further £683m.
Builders’ Conference chief executive Neil Edwards was gloomy about prospects: “The number of contract awards gathered during September was just 468 projects. If that were not evidence enough of a continued slowing in demand, then the quarterly round-up figures most certainly are,” he said. “The number of projects recorded during the third quarter to the end of September was down 25% on the previous quarter. Take out the freakishly-large HS2-related work, and the value of those projects was down by 20% against the previous quarter.”
He added: “August 2017 was an incredible high. But like all highs, a low is bound to follow. And the coming down in September feels less like a return to what is becoming a new norm, and more like plummeting off the cliff’s edge.”
The BCLive top 20, September 2017
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