Dr David Crosthwaite, chief economist at the Building Cost Information Service (BCIS), says Office for National Statistics (ONS) construction market data for the second quarter of 2025 casts doubt on whether the UK government will be able to meet its housebuilding commitments.
New orders and output in construction were at odds in the second quarter.
Output was broadly positive, with the sector outperforming the wider economy and posting 1.2 per cent growth on the previous quarter.
New order figures provided less positive reading.
Orders were down on the quarter and the year with substantial quarterly decreases in the commercial, industrial and infrastructure sectors.
In part, this may be symptomatic of the lack of clearly defined private finance routes in the Infrastructure Pipeline.
Without the investment fine print, there’s little impetus yet for investors to engage.
As ever, housebuilding is a major concern.
Private housebuilding new orders were down significantly on the year in the second quarter, overshadowing the small increases in new private housing output.
The stakes are high for this government.
But it’s still impossible to see how it plans to scale up housebuilding with little to no control over housebuilders’ output.
