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New contract awards hit five-year low

New contract awards hit five-year low

2 Aug 17 Data gathered by the Builders’ Conference indicates a downturn in UK construction activity ahead with a slowdown in new contracts being signed.

Kier won £146m of new business in July, to top the BCLive league table for the month

The Builders’ Conference recorded just 351 new contract awards with a combined value of just £2.24bn. That is the lowest monthly figure since December 2012 and well below the usual norm of around £4bn a month.

Forward tenders – a key indicator of likely workloads four or five months ahead – remain depressed as well.

The rolling year-to-date total of all construction contract awards stood at £57bn at the start of 2016. Today it is down to £44bn.

However, with £6.6bn of HS2 contracts officially signed on 1st August 2017, we can expect to see the BCLive data spike to a rare high this month.

Kier won the most new business in July, topping the Builders’ Conference BCLive league table for the month, securing four new projects with a combined value of £145.9m. The largest of these is a £75m private hospital in Manchester for Nuffield Health.

Multiplex took second spot with a single contract award worth £115m for a mixed use development at London’s Royal Albert Dock for ABP.

Third place went to Shropshire-based RGB, which secured five new contracts worth a combined £108m, including a £32m student accommodation scheme in Portsmouth.