Construction output in Great Britain: September 2024, new orders and Construction Output Price Indices, July to September 2024

• Construction output is estimated to have increased by 0.8% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2024 compared with Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2024; this came solely from an increase in new work (2.0%), as repair and maintenance fell by 0.6%.
• Monthly construction output is estimated to have grown by 0.1% in volume terms in September 2024; this came solely from a rise in repair and maintenance (0.4%) as new work fell by 0.2%.
• At the sector level, four out of the nine sectors grew in September 2024; the main contributor to the monthly increase was private housing repair and maintenance, which grew by 1.3%.
• Total construction new orders fell 22.0% (£2,722 million) in Quarter 3 2024 compared with Quarter 2 2024; this quarterly decrease came mainly from private new housing and private commercial new work, which fell 31.3% (£861 million) and 20.8% (£786 million), respectively.
• The annual rate of construction output price growth was 2.0% in the 12 months to September 2024.

Monthly construction output is estimated to have grown by 0.1% in volume terms in September 2024. This follows growth of 0.6% (revised from 0.4%) in monthly construction output in August 2024. Monthly construction output for July 2024 fell by 0.4%.

Quarter-on-quarter construction output growth in Quarter 3 2024

Construction output grew by 0.8% (£444 million) in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2024. The quarterly growth came solely from an increase in new work (2.0%), as repair and maintenance fell by 0.6%.

The increase in Quarter 3 2024 was because of growth in two of the three months of the quarter, with growth of 0.6% in August and 0.1% in September.

Of the nine sectors, eight saw increases in Quarter 3 2024, with the largest contributors being non-housing repair and maintenance, and infrastructure new work. These sectors grew by 2.6% (£298 million) and 2.8% (£213 million), respectively.

The only negative contributor was private housing repair and maintenance, which fell by 5.8% (£539 million).

Month-on-month construction output growth in September 2024

The 0.1% growth in construction output in September 2024 represents an increase of £15 million in monetary terms compared with August 2024, with four out of the nine sectors seeing growth on the month. The volume in September 2024 was £17,654 million.

Private housing repair and maintenance and infrastructure new work were the largest positive contributors to the monthly increase in September 2024, increasing 1.3% (£39 million) and 1.4% (£37 million), respectively.

In Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2024, total construction new orders decreased by 22.0% (£2,722 million) compared with Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2024. This follows an increase of 16.0% in Quarter 2 2024, compared with Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024. Quarter 3 2024 showed the lowest level of total construction new orders (£9,673 million) since Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2023 (£9,126 million). More information can be found in our New orders in the construction industry dataset.

Other new work new orders (that is, non-housing) was the largest contributor to the decrease in Quarter 3 2024, falling by 18.3% (£1,682 million). This mainly came from private commercial new orders, which fell by 20.8% (£786 million) and was caused by decreases in offices, entertainment and shops. The other main contributor to the fall in other new work was public new orders, which decreased by 28.0% (£532 million).

Housing new orders saw a decrease of 32.6% (£1,041 million). This came predominantly from private new housing, which fell by 31.3% (£861 million). Public new housing also fell by 40.5% (£180 million).

Prices in the construction industry, as estimated by our Construction Output Price Index (OPI), increased to 2.0% in the 12-month period to September 2024.

Construction output estimates

Construction output estimates are monthly estimates of the amount of output chargeable to customers for building and civil engineering work done in the relevant period, excluding Value Added Tax (VAT) and payments to subcontractors.

Seasonally adjusted estimates

Seasonally adjusted estimates are derived by estimating and removing calendar effects (for example, leap years such as 2020) and seasonal effects (for example, decreased activity at Christmas because of site shutdowns) from the non-seasonally adjusted estimates.

Value estimates

The value estimates reflect the total value of work that businesses have completed over a reference month.

Volume estimates

The volume estimates are calculated by taking the value estimates and adjusting to remove the impact of price changes.

Quality and methodology

More quality and methodology information (QMI) is available in:

• our Construction output QMI
• our Construction output price indices (OPIs) QMI
• our New orders in construction QMI

Reasons for revisions to construction output in this release

This release contains revisions to construction output estimates from July 2024 onwards, and is consistent with the National Accounts Revisions Policy. Revisions in this release are a result of:

• revisions in the nominal data; this includes revisions to the survey data
• revisions to seasonal adjustment factors, which are re-estimated every month and reviewed annually
• revisions to the input series for the Construction Output Price Indices (OPIs)

For further information on the revisions profile, see our Output in the construction industry revisions triangle (one-month growth) dataset and our Output in the construction industry revisions triangle (three-month growth) dataset.

Sub-national and sub-sector construction output

Data on new orders supplied by Barbour ABI are used to model the breakdown of the overall output figures for Great Britain into the lower-level and regional data. This is shown in Tables 1 and 2 of our Output in the construction Industry: sub-national and sub-sector dataset. More detail is available in our Quality assurance of administrative data used in construction statistics methodology.

Bias adjustment

Typically, since the move to monthly gross domestic product (GDP) estimates, an adjustment to address any bias in survey responses for construction output is applied to the early construction output monthly estimates. We show this in our Improvements to construction statistics: Addressing the bias in early estimates of construction output, June 2018 article.

Response rates for September 2024 showed improvement compared with levels in recent years since the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The survey turnover response rate for September 2024 was 72.2%. This follows a response rate of 81.2% in August and 76.6% in July. We have continued not to apply a bias adjustment since May 2020, while we review this approach. More information on our response rates is available in our Output in the construction industry dataset.

Differences with Monthly GDP construction estimates

In Blue Book 2021, we introduced a new framework to improve how we produce volume estimates of GDP for balanced years as part of the supply use process. This was explained in our Producing an alternative approach to GDP using experimental double deflation estimates article. This framework included the implementation of double-deflated industry-level gross value added (GVA) for the first time. This improvement was reflected in the GDP quarterly national accounts, UK: April to June 2021 bulletin and GDP monthly estimate, UK: August 2021 bulletin for the first time.

As a result, volume estimates in the monthly GDP and construction outputs releases will differ for the period 1997 to 2020. This is because the construction publication measures the volume of construction work (output), while the GDP series measures GVA (that is, output minus intermediate consumption). Construction estimates will align, but on a growth basis from January 2021 onwards.

Information and indicative effects of this change to industry-level GVA volume can be found in our Indicative impact of a new framework including double deflation on industry volume estimates of GDP: Blue Book 2021 and our Impact of Blue Book 2021 changes on quarterly volume estimates of gross domestic product by industry article.