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Published: 16/01/2025
Each month the Department for Business and Trade publishes construction material price indices, categories under All Work, New Housing, Other New Work and Repair and Maintenance, as well as tracking a selection of building materials and components for the UK, and providing statistics on bricks and concrete blocks production, delivery and stock for Great Britain.
Annual movement in building materials prices was static in November
Construction materials prices for All Work remained unchanged in the 12 months to November 2024, according to the latest figures published by the Department for Business and Trade.
New Housing registered a 1.3% increase, Repair and Maintenance was up by 0.7% and Other New Work decreased by 1.2% in the 12 months to November 2024.
Source: Department for Business & Trade – Building materials and components statistics, Table 1a
Up to October 2024, the All Work index had seen 17 consecutive months of decreasing annual movement. Despite an overall cooling in materials cost inflation, compared to where prices have been in the last couple of years, there remains divergent movement for different materials, and therefore for different trades.
Precast concrete blocks, bricks, tiles and flagstones saw the greatest annual increase (6.3%), while fabricated structural steel remained among the materials showing the greatest price decreases compared with November 2023.
Source: Department for Business & Trade – Building materials and components statistics, Table 2
* DBT advises index values should not be relied upon for long-term contractual purposes, as they are based on relatively few quotes.
On a monthly basis, the most significant price differences were seen in plastic doors and windows (1.5%), imported plywood (1.1%) and metal doors and windows (1.0%).
DBT’s report also showed concrete block deliveries (seasonally adjusted) were up by 13.7% in the year to October 2024 and up by 2.7% on a monthly basis.
Brick deliveries (seasonally adjusted) increased by 28.4% in the 12 months to November 2024 and increased by 0.8% compared with October 2024. Stocks of all types of bricks at the end of November stood at 473.3 million, which was 17.1% less than at the end of November last year (571.2 million).
By comparison with pre-pandemic activity levels, seasonally adjusted brick deliveries in November 2024 were 22.4% lower than in November 2019, and stocks were 12.8% higher.
Source: Department for Business & Trade – Building materials and components statistics, Table 9a
Dr David Crosthwaite, Chief Economist at BCIS, said: ‘Muted growth in materials cost inflation and demand has continued into the latter half of 2024 across all sectors. We suspect that we’ve now reached the bottom and are predicting an uptick in materials cost inflation as demand conditions improve.’
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