Further evidence of the cooling off in construction has come with reports of an 8.5% decline in contract awards last month over August 2019.
The total value for the month was £4.4 billion, initially showing over 20% increase on July based on a three-month rolling average, according to the latest figures from Barbour ABI. But the raw monthly data shows that awards in were actually down 37.6% in the same period, though it does point out that July was particularly buoyant.
Residential was the strongest sector in August, accounting for 37.6% of awards. Infrastructure was the second largest sector in August with attributable share of 30.5% of awards. Vying for third place the education and industrial sectors accounted for 9.4% and 9.0% respective share of contract awards this month.
Tom Hall, Chief Economist at Barbour ABI and AMA Research said: “The UK economy continued its stronger than expected recovery in July, growing by 6.6% following June’s expansion of 8.7%. The economy has now recovered around half of the lost output between March and May. In the construction industry, contract awards returned strongly in July, but in-month awards were significantly lower in August.”http://ubm.io/2FRLrwm
