Construction output in Great Britain: May 2024

Short-term measures of output by the construction industry in May 2024.

Nid hwn yw'r datganiad diweddaraf. Gweld y datganiad diweddaraf

Cyswllt:
Email Construction statistics

Dyddiad y datganiad:
11 July 2024

Cyhoeddiad nesaf:
15 August 2024

1. Main points

  • Monthly construction output is estimated to have grown by 1.9% in volume terms in May 2024; this follows a fall of 1.1% in April 2024 (revised from a fall of 1.4%).

  • The increase in monthly output came from increases in both new work (2.7%), and repair and maintenance (0.8%); anecdotal evidence from survey returns noted that warmer weather contributed to increased output in May, with the Met Office confirming in their Monthly climate summary (PDF, 4.6MB) that May 2024 was the warmest on record.

  •  At the sector level, eight out of the nine sectors saw growth in May 2024, the main contributors to the monthly increase were a 2.8% increase in total new housing, with both private and public new housing increasing on the month, infrastructure new work, which rose by 3.5%, and non-housing repair and maintenance, which grew by 2.1% on the month.

  • Construction output is estimated to have fallen by 0.7% in the three months to May 2024; this came from a decrease in new work of 0.9%, and repair and maintenance, which fell by 0.3%.

Nôl i'r tabl cynnwys

2. Construction in Great Britain data

Output in the construction industry
Dataset | Released 11 July 2024
Monthly construction output for Great Britain at current price and chained volume measures, seasonally adjusted by public and private sector. Quality measures, including response rates.

Output in the construction industry: sub-national and sub-sector
Dataset | Released 10 May 2024
Quarterly non-seasonally adjusted type of work and regional data at current prices, Great Britain.

Construction output price indices
Dataset | Released 10 May 2024
A summary of the Construction Output Price Indices (OPIs) from January 2014 to March 2024, UK.

New orders in the construction industry
Dataset | Released 10 May 2024
Quarterly new orders at current price and chained volume measures, seasonally adjusted by public and private sector. Quarterly non-seasonally adjusted type of work and regional data.

Construction statistics annual tables
Dataset | Released 28 November 2023
The construction industry in Great Britain, including value of output and type of work, new orders by sector, number of firms and total employment.

Output in the Construction Industry – Customise My Data
Dataset | Released 11 July 2024
Customise My Data (CMD) is our new way of providing filterable, explorable data suitable to individual user needs.

Nôl i'r tabl cynnwys

3. Glossary

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 2024) 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.

Nôl i'r tabl cynnwys

4. Measuring the data

Quality and methodology

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

Reasons for revisions to construction output in this release

This release contains revisions from January 2024 onwards. The revisions up to March 2024 are consistent with those published in our Gross domestic product (GDP) quarterly national accounts, UK: January to March 2024 bulletin, published on 28 June 2024. This 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 Prices Indices (OPIs)

It is important to note that early estimates are subject to revision (positive and negative). 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 May 2024 showed improvement compared with levels in recent years since the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The survey turnover response rate for May 2024 was 77.0% 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 dataset 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 Impact of double deflation on industry chain volume measure annual estimates article and in our Impact of Blue Book 2021 changes on quarterly volume estimates of gross domestic product by industry article.

Nôl i'r tabl cynnwys

5. Cite this statistical bulletin

Office for National Statistics (ONS), published 11 July 2024, ONS website, statistical bulletin, Construction output in Great Britain: May 2024

Nôl i'r tabl cynnwys

Manylion cyswllt ar gyfer y Bwletin ystadegol

Construction statistics
construction.statistics@ons.gov.uk
Ffôn: +44 1633 45644