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Published: 13/08/2025
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes quarterly data(1) measuring the number of employees and self-employed people in the UK by industry and gender. This data, which is non-seasonally adjusted, is based on the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and aims to provide a current snapshot of employment trends and insight into the labour markets of specific industries.
Over the last 18 months, ONS has made several changes to address quality concerns with the LFS(2) and caution has been advised in using these statistics.
Construction workforce shrinks in 2Q2025
The UK construction workforce shrunk to its lowest level since 2Q2024 in the second quarter of 2025, according to the latest employment data from the ONS.
There were 2,064,084 workers in the construction sector in 2Q2025, with over one-third self-employed.
This was a 3.1% decrease on the total workforce in 1Q2025 but a 0.3% increase on the year.
The size of the workforce remained 12.2% lower than in pre-pandemic 2Q2019, with 287,898 fewer workers.
Compared with 2Q2008, just before the start of the global financial crisis, the workforce has shrunk by more than 417,000 workers.
Dr David Crosthwaite, chief economist at BCIS, said: ‘The latest employment figures are not where they need to be. Total construction workforce numbers were down on the quarter in 2Q2025 and both direct employment and self-employed workers remain significantly lower than the levels recorded before the 2008-09 financial crisis.
‘Government skills initiatives, including the recent confirmation that 40,000 construction workers are to be trained in specialist colleges by 2029, are certainly welcome.
‘The trouble is they are longer-term fixes. They are unlikely to have the immediate impact on labour supply that’s urgently needed for housebuilding and infrastructure delivery. If demand does increase in the next year, where are the additional workers going to come from?’
Employed and self-employed workers
In 2Q2025, there were 1,296,720 employed workers and 767,364 self-employed workers. Self-employed workers therefore accounted for 37% of the overall workforce, the same proportion as has been the overall average level of self-employment in the sector since 1997.
The number of employed workers in 2Q2025 was down by 3.2% on the quarter and 2.9% on the year.
Self-employed workers in construction decreased on the quarter but rose by 6.2% on the year.
Source: ONS
The construction gender divide
Breaking down the LFS figures by gender, 84.9% of all construction workers in 2Q2025 were men, with 310,842 women working in the sector in total.
Among employed workers, the number of male and female workers respectively decreased on the quarter. The number of employed men in construction also fell by 7.6% on the year while employed women increased by nearly one-fifth (19.2%).
By comparison, self-employed men decreased by 3.3% on the quarter and rose by 6.6% annually. In contrast, the number of self-employed women rose by 3.7% on 1Q2025 and fell by 2.3% on the year.
Source: ONS
Job vacancies in construction
New figures from the ONS Vacancy Survey – a regular survey that informs comprehensive estimates of the number of available positions in the economy – show that in the three months to the end of July 2025, there were around 30,000 job vacancies in the construction sector(3).
The same number was recorded in the three months to the end of June 2025 – the lowest level seen since 2021.
Compared with the same period in 2024, there were 8,000 less vacancies between May and July 2025.
Source: ONS
Dr Crosthwaite added: ‘Low job vacancies typically point to a slowdown in the job market. While this is not necessarily an indication that businesses are struggling, in this context, it’s not a good sign for construction given the wider labour supply shortfall.
‘Together, lower numbers of job vacancies and workers do not provide much optimism for the sector’s ability to handle a potential uptick in demand.’
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