Tender Price Indicators
Q2 2025
The UK construction sector enters mid-2025 with significant uncertainty and a mixed inflationary backdrop. Despite some easing in materials costs and signs of stabilising input inflation, tender pricing remains under upward pressure due to structural labour constraints, rising compliance costs and selective contractor behaviour. Delays in project conversion, a softening economic outlook and policy-driven cost escalations are compounding market fragility and limiting the pace of recovery.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
Q1 2025
A mixed outlook of slow economic growth, inflationary pressure and shifting policy dynamics are holding back growth in the sector. Constrained supply, regulatory burdens and heightened risk aversion continue to drive tender prices in the short term.
By Michael Urie
-
Q4 2024
Q4 2024
Buoyed by positive sentiment indicators and a pro-construction budget, the UK construction industry appears poised for growth.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q3 2024
Q3 2024
As interest rate cuts and anticipated planning reforms spark hopes for a construction revival, will inflationary pressures resurface and how will contractor capacity constraints restrict future workload growth?
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q2 2024
Q2 2024
Many in UK construction continue to wait with bated breath for a much hoped for fall in interest rates. With development viability considerations still front and centre, a reduction in financing costs may be the key to unleash demand and move projects out of their current holding pattern.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q1 2024
Q1 2024
With market activity slowing in some sectors and deflationary pressures mounting, contractor pricing is expected to be more competitive in 2024. Although procurement conditions may become more favourable, interest rates and the high cost of debt remain a key pressure on viability.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q4 2023
Q4 2023
The UK construction industry continues to grapple with uncertain demand, high construction and financing costs, as well as skilled labour shortages - a potential storm that is increasing financial pressure.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q3 2023
Q3 2023
With an economy that continues to flatline amid a stubborn inflationary backdrop, the bigger picture is one of a recovery that is likely to remain stuck in low gear as it battles a range of headwinds to growth.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q2 2023
Q2 2023
Prospects for the UK economy have improved in recent months, but the possibility of an economic slowdown in 2023 still looms.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q1 2023
Q1 2023
The construction sector bucked the broader economic trend in the latter half of 2022, expanding when other core sectors of the economy contracted. As the stand out sector, strong output growth in 2022 provided the industry with a buffer of workload and laid a solid foundation for the industry to enter an economic slowdown.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q4 2022
Q4 2022
Forecasting is an inherently difficult task, even at the best of times, but a constantly shifting economic landscape and enhanced market volatility in recent weeks has made predicting where the market will be next week, let alone in the years to come, a complex and problematic undertaking.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q3 2022
Q3 2022
Elevated inflation across the globe has impacted every sector and UK construction is no exception. The post-pandemic rebound that was building prior to the conflict has come to a halt following broad-based inflationary pressures and the risk of stagflation or recession.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q2 2022
Q2 2022
The Russia-Ukraine conflict and the ensuing roll-out of sanctions and retaliatory measures have ushered in a new era of economic difficulties and inflation. The swings in commodity prices have been dramatic and the record rises in fuel and energy prices alarming. War brings significant volatility, and this is set to be a feature of the economic outlook for the foreseeable future.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q1 2022
Q1 2022
Inflation is here, but for how long? Analysis tells us from spring, inflation will lower but leave us with much higher price levels.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q4 2021
Q4 2021
From toilet rolls to timber, supply chain issues have evolved and expanded over the last year-and-a-half.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q3 2021
Q3 2021
‘Transitory inflation’. This is the term currently being bandied about by economists. But transitory or not, inflation is certainly here.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q2 2021
Q2 2021
COVID-19 has made it difficult to quantify the impact of Brexit on trade but a successful vaccination roll out fosters a faster economic revival.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q1 2021
Q1 2021
A third national COVID-19 lockdown and a historic trade deal with the EU. Will these impact the construction industry for the good or the bad?
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q4 2020
Q4 2020
With the initial shock of COVID-19 now over, there have been some promising signs that an economic recovery is on the horizon.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
-
Q3 2020
Q3 2020
Given the uncertainty at the time, our previous TPI forecast used a scenario-based approach, outlining how different market conditions might weigh in on tendering conditions. Whilst there are still many unknowns with regards to the type of recovery that will materialise, it has become clear that substantial deflationary pressures will affect input costs and tender pricing into 2021.
By Gavin Murgatroyd
