In today’s news, we will look into the Housebuilders’ warning that the Labour Party’s ambition to “get Britain building” is in jeopardy due to the construction backlog. In the meantime, in the field of engineering construction, why is it that young people are able to find opportunities? Is it because the engineering construction industry is in need of new workers? Cob research conducted by FCIOB also demonstrates how material could contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions. Furthermore, Labour forecasts growth, but the building industry in the UK is anticipated to experience a decline.
Housebuilders Say Labour’s ‘get Britain Building’ Plan is Threatened by Construction Delays
Original Source: Housebuilders warn construction lag threatens Labour plan to ‘get Britain building’
UK housebuilders predict output to dip this year, making it at least a year before home supply increases, highlighting the new Labour government’s struggle to ‘get Britain built’.
Barratt, one of the nation’s top developers, warned last week that it would build fewer homes in the coming year to catch up with a market slump-induced slowdown in land acquisition and new site launches.
MJ Gleeson, a smaller north-of-England builder, told the Financial Times that the market recovery was taking longer than predicted and that completions would not take up until the second part of next year.
The slowdown in output puts pressure on the government’s goal to build 1.5mn homes over five years to address a national housing need, which relies on commercial housebuilders.
Investec analyst Aynsley Lammin said hopes that the industry’s output may revive in 2024 had “definitely been pushed into 2025” and that volumes will likely “be ramping up more meaningfully from the second quarter of 2025”.
He stated that it will take time for the planning modifications to take effect and for housebuilders to launch more sites.
New construction has been recovering slowly for almost two years, but mortgage rates are likely to reduce, stabilising the housing market.
Sir Keir Starmer’s administration outlined plans to unclog Britain’s blocked planning system to increase housebuilding to more than 300,000 homes a year, a goal not met in almost 50 years.
Savills expects completions to dip this year, making it difficult for the government to fulfil that aim. Savills predicts that new private homes for sale will drop to 100,000 in the 12 months to March 2025, from 115,000 a year earlier, compared with an annual average of 140,000 in the three years to March 2023. Large developers sell most of the new supply. Official numbers are due in November.
Next June, Barratt aims to deliver 13,000–13,500 homes, down from 14,004 last year. It attributed the drop to “temporary” delays in building new sites after buying less land in the past two years due to buyer demand slump.
After the terrible autumn 2022 mini-budget, which raised mortgage rates and collapsed the home sales industry, most big developers stopped buying land and cut output.
“We can stop the tap quickly. We can’t turn the tap on rapidly’, said MJ Gleeson CEO Graham Prothero.
He acknowledged that the sales market was more difficult than anticipated, but attributed it to the practicalities of opening sites.
Although speeding up planning permissions will help developers, Vistry CEO Greg Fitzgerald said sales will determine how much the industry builds.
“All house builders can build faster,” he remarked. “But they are only building to sell.”
Rebuilding the trained labour needed to build additional homes could slow the recovery.
“As of today, I don’t have a problem,” stated Prothero. “If over the next 12 and 24 months, with the new government’s commitment, people look to ramp up volumes, then [labour force] could very quickly become an issue.”
Why Engineering Construction Youth Have Opportunity
Original Source: Why opportunity knocks for young people in engineering construction
On the 10th anniversary of World Youth Skills Day, ECITB CEO Andrew Hockey highlighted the many opportunities for young people in engineering construction.
The engineering construction business requires fresh workers.
According to the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board’s (ECITB) Labour Forecasting Tool, significant infrastructure projects in the UK would require 40,000 more workers by 2028.
With this expanding demand for trained personnel, young people can start careers that make a difference in an industry crucial to net zero.
Construction engineering offers many job paths for youth.
Mechanical and electrical engineers, scaffolders, process engineers, project managers, pipefitters, welders, and instrument and control technicians have these chances.
Oil and gas, nuclear, renewables, hydrogen, carbon capture, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food processing, water, and waste treatment offer careers.
The Leading sector Learning Strategy of the British employer-led skills body for the sector prioritises training and developing new entrants to take advantage of these opportunities. We allocate half of our training grant funding to this area.
Engineering construction career paths
The ECITB has many programmes to entice school leavers, graduates, and the jobless to the sector.
These include engineering construction trade apprenticeships that pay while learning. Company-employed youth integrate academics and practical training from day one.
The ECITB Scholarship Programme helps students enter apprenticeships or other jobs by teaching them industry-relevant skills.
Students get a weekly student allowance and graduate with industry-standard qualifications, site passports, and on-site industry experience.
The ECITB’s Graduate Development Grant helps 300 engineering graduates annually, giving companies £4,000 over two years for training and development.
Those 18 and older who are not employed, in school, or training can achieve industry-recognized skills and certificates through our life-changing Work Ready Programme.
It lasts up to 16 weeks and is co-funded by colleges, training providers, companies, the ECITB, and the Department of Work and Pensions across the UK.
The free course includes full-time training and evaluation, work placements, and site visits and leads to engineering construction jobs for young people.
Celebrating skill value
The UN General Assembly established July 15, 2014, World Youth Skills Day to “celebrate the importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship”.
I’ve met hundreds of young people throughout the UK on our initiatives in my first year as ECITB chief executive and witnessed the impact of teaching them job skills.
My recent visit to East Coast College in Lowestoft to see our ECITB scholars’ amazing journey invigorated me.
I met the same young people eight months previously, shortly after they started the scholarship project, and was amazed by how much they had grown in confidence and development.
Hearing that several of them had earned apprenticeships and industry jobs after the scholarship showed the genuine value of skills training.
In my first year, I’ve been across the UK, from Cannington National College for Nuclear campus at Bridgwater & Taunton College to North East Scotland College (NESCol) in Aberdeen.
Spending so much time with young people learning industry-relevant skills has been eye-opening.
Cob Study by FCIOB Illustrates How Material Might Reduce Carbon
Original Source: FCIOB’s cob research shows how material could help cut carbon
Recent academic research led by a CIOB fellow suggests cob buildings could solve low-carbon housebuilding.
For generations, thousands of cob dwellings in southern England and northern France have been made by mixing dirt and natural fibres with water.
Despite their intrinsic thermal benefits and minimal integrated carbon, the materials violate modern thermal and structural building rules.
A cross-border research initiative conducted by the University of Plymouth created a trial building material that meets current building rules.
Plymouth researchers and French colleagues investigated various soils and fibres from France and England to generate thermally and structurally tested materials for the CobBauge project.
Low-carbon material
Professor Steve Goodhew FCIOB, chief investigator on the project, gave CIOB members a tour of the scheme and described its carbon emission reduction implications.
“The main selling point is that the material is low carbon in its existence,” he stated. This is about ingredients and processes. Our goal is to reduce global warming gases to their lowest level.”
Cobb’s advantages include low cost, convenience of use, and local materials that require little or no transfer. Goodhew believes the material’s low embodied energy and high thermal mass help regulate internal temperature in summer and winter.
In experiments, clay-rich material and hemp shiv gave the best thermal insulation. It didn’t give enough structural stability, so a structural mix was placed inside the walls.
“The only solution is a structural layer and a thermal layer, in other words a composite,” Goodhew said.
During a testing workshop visit, university School of Art, Design, and Architecture senior technician Kevin Owen explained the materials.
Labour Predicts Growth While UK Construction Falls
Original Source: Labour posits growth while UK construction is expected to slump
Labour’s manifesto proposes boosting UK building output through residential, energy, and utilities.
GlobalData predicts a 3% real-term contraction in the UK construction industry in 2024 and 1% in 2025 after an 86-seat Labour Party majority.
Rebounding depends on elections, high material costs, developing foreign trade agreements, and restrictive migration policy.
This sidelines housing while giving energy construction stakeholders attractive domestic chances.
UK 2024 election vote breakdown
Labour won 412 seats on July 4, 2024, exceeding the 326-seat majority.
The Conservatives lost 240 seats and 11 cabinet ministers, their worst performance ever.
Reform UK, formerly the Brexit Party, received over four million votes, 14.3% of total voting, despite only four seats.
Under a Conservative government, 14 years of rising house prices, inconsistent inflation, and unstable migration have seen consumer confidence fall from 101.07 in 2010 to 99.24 in 2024, unrelated to housing output falling short of UK Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee targets year-on-year (YoY) since 2020, Brexit, Covid-19, and fractured global economy.
Since the Bank of England emphasises autonomy in contrast to Conservative fiscal policy, fixing interest rates at 4.6% did little to improve Conservative polling.
The government faces a battle as 80% of the UK public abstained/rejected voting for Labour, despite Labour leader Keir Starmer’s political victory.
The Labour manifesto includes measures to boost UK construction output in the residential, energy, and utility sectors.
In particular, investing £8.3bn ($10.62bn) to design Great British Energy and £6.6bn to implement new Warm Home Plans by 2028, creating 1.5 million new residential dwellings by 2029, and ‘doubling onshore wind, tripling solar electricity, and quadrupling offshore wind’ by 2030.
Labour will also accelerate 5G infrastructure, nuclear labs, and battery production for energy autonomy.
Thus, GlobalData estimates energy and utilities construction to expand 4.17% year between 2024 and 2028.
Due to an exhausted government budget, high construction material costs, and workforce instability, residential output is anticipated to fall 3.4% in 2024 and 5% in 2025.
Energy nationalisation is supported across Labour and right-wing ideologies.
Note: High material costs can hinder new project viability.
Though the UK Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy’s average construction material price index fell 1.9% in the first three months of 2024, prices remain high after increases in 2021 (15.2%), 2022 (19%), and 2023 (0.9%).
In 2023, residential building materials including pipes and fittings (22.3%), doors and windows (18.2%), and ready-mixed concrete (13.4%) increased significantly.
The value of new building orders given at current prices declined 1.3% YoY in Q1 2024, following 27.8% and 15.2% reductions in Q4 and Q3 2023.
In 2023, new orders declined 16% to £67.9bn from £80.8bn in 2022.
In contrast to Conservative fiscal policy, Starmer has advocated following UK Office for Budget Responsibility restrictions while keeping tax rates and ‘solving’ the £121bn budget deficit, which is 4.4% of GDP as of May.
Since its construction objectives are beyond existing fiscal capabilities, GlobalData predicts that a Labour administration will be forced to prioritise energy above housing.
Second, labour supply unpredictability impairs project planning and feasibility.
Following net immigration exceeding 685 million in 2023, Ipsos’ Issues Index ranks immigration as the top election issue behind the NHS and economy.
Non-UK workers make up 10% of UK construction industry employment as of 2022, indicating a decreasing workforce supply due to political consensus to curb immigration.
The degree and mechanism of UK immigration tightening is unclear due to Labour campaigning vaguely aware of its greater majority.
After Brexit, the UK Department of Business and Trade has set ambitious goals to expand free trade agreements (FTAs) with India, Vietnam, Mexico, Turkey, Samoa, Fiji, North Macedonia, Morocco, and Norway, having negotiated the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership in July 2023.
These FTAs could boost UK building output if Labour can negotiate material pricing and set domestic migration limits.
Final Words
Labour earned an 86-seat majority due to declining consumer confidence after 14 years of Conservative rule.
Starmer believes the UK construction industry may thrive by focusing on residential, energy, and utilities, including nationalising energy through Great British Energy.
High material costs and workforce unpredictability hinder project feasibility.
GlobalData anticipates the UK construction industry to decrease by 3% in 2024 and 1% in 2025, although rising bilateral FTAs could boost output from 2026.
In the short term, excessive political promises and fiscal realities will hinder UK construction output.
Summary of today’s construction news
Overall, we have discussed how the Housebuilders in the UK expect production to fall this year, putting the incoming Labour government’s efforts to “get Britain built” on hold for at least another year. Barratt, a leading national developer, announced last week that it will reduce the number of homes it builds this year in an effort to make up for the land acquisition and new site launches that have slowed due to the market decline. On the other hand, ECITB CEO Andrew Hockey emphasised the numerous opportunities for young people in the engineering and construction sectors at the 10th anniversary of World Youth Skills Day. By 2028, major infrastructure projects in the UK would necessitate an additional forty thousand workers, according to the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) Labour Forecasting Tool. Additionally, cob buildings may be the answer to low-carbon homebuilding, according to new academic research spearheaded by a CIOB scholar. Thousands of cob houses have been constructed for centuries in northern France and southern England using a combination of water, soil, and natural fibres. The materials are in violation of modern thermal and structural building requirements, even though they have inherent thermal benefits and minimal incorporated carbon. In addition, the UK’s residential, energy, and utilities sectors are to be prioritised in the labour manifesto as means to increase building output. Following an 86-seat Labour Party majority in the UK parliament, GlobalData projects a 3% real-term decrease in the construction industry in 2024 and a 1% contraction in 2025. Rebounding is conditional on upcoming elections, high material costs, the formation of international trade agreements, and stringent policies regarding migration. As a result, domestic opportunities for energy building players are enticing, whereas housing is sidelined.
