BCIS CapX provides a comprehensive, detailed and easy-to-use method of measuring cost movement for building and civil engineering. Widely used in the construction and infrastructure sector to help fairly allocate risk between the client and sub-contractors.
Published: 09/07/2024
Each month the Department for Business and Trade publishes construction material price indices, covering 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.
Building materials prices decrease further across the board
Construction materials prices for All Work fell by 2% in the 12 months to May 2024, according to the latest figures published by the Department for Business and Trade. This was a smaller decrease than the 3.1% drop seen in the year to April 2024.
New Housing registered a 0.1% decrease, Repair and Maintenance was down by 0.5% and Other New Work decreased by 3.5%.
Source: Department for Business & Trade – Building materials and components statistics, Table 1a
The figures demonstrate a continued cooling in materials cost inflation, compared to where prices have been in the last couple of years, albeit with differences in annual movement between some outlier materials, and therefore for different trades.
Flexible pipes and fittings, and metal doors and windows saw more than 10% annual growth in the year to May 2024 (18% and 15.7% respectively).
Fabricated structural steel and steel concrete rebar continue to show the biggest annual drops (-20.5% and -13.4% respectively) of the materials featured in the dataset. Gravel, sand, clays and kaolin, including the Aggregate Levy, was down by 12.8%
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 gravel, sands, clays and kaolin – excluding the Aggregate Levy (-2.9%), builders’ woodwork: doors and windows (+1.6%), rigid pipes and fittings (+1.4%) and flexible pipes and fittings (-1.1%).
DBT’s report also showed concrete block deliveries (seasonally adjusted) were down by 3.7% in the year to May 2024, but up 5.3% on a monthly basis.
Brick deliveries (seasonally adjusted) fell by 9.3% in the 12 months to May 2024, and decreased by 2.9% compared with April 2024. Stocks of all types of bricks at the end of May stood at 520.7 million, which was 8.9% higher than at the end of May last year (478.2 million). By comparison with pre-Covid activity levels, brick deliveries in May 2024 were 37.2% lower than in May 2019, and stocks were 34.8% higher.
BCIS Chief Data Officer, Karl Horton, said: ‘The latest monthly output figures showed housing contracting again, with both private housing new work and repair and maintenance falling by 4.4% and 2.5% respectively.
‘The fact that respondents to the S&P Global UK Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index survey pointed again to declining housing activity in June, after seeing the first uptick in 19 months in May, shows it’s a rocky road to recovery.
‘The new Labour government has ambitious housing targets, which will not be easy to achieve, alongside all of the other challenges it faces in seeking to boost economic growth, and affordability remains an issue.’
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