OVERALL Scottish construction sector output is forecast to contract at an average annual rate of 0.4 per cent over the five years to 2021.
And employment in Scotland’s construction sector is projected to fall at an average annual rate of 0.8 per cent over the five-year period.
Scotland and north-east England are the only parts of the UK in which a fall in the sector’s output is projected, in the latest forecasts from the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB).
The forecast fall in Scottish construction activity is almost entirely the result of a projected drop in the level of infrastructure activity, following the completion of several major projects including the Queensferry Crossing.
Scottish construction employment is projected to total around 215,000 in 2021, about 8,400 below the estimated 2016 level and more than 37,000 below its 2008 peak.
Nevertheless, the CITB’s Construction Skills Network report, published in association with Experian, projects nearly 12,000 new construction workers will be needed in Scotland to meet demand, taking into account factors such as retirement and migration.
Industrial construction activity in Scotland is also forecast to dip over the five-year period. However, growth is projected in public and private housing and repair and maintenance activity.
CITB says: “Infrastructure levels in Scotland have operated at exceptionally high levels in recent years, accounting for 29 per cent of [construction] output in 2015, against 15 per cent for the UK as a whole. If infrastructure was removed from the Scottish forecast, overall output would average growth of one per cent a year.”
It adds that it has factored Brexit into the forecasts, but warns “there remain many unknowns to life after leaving” the European Union.
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