OVERALL growth of activity for small and medium-sized building firms in Scotland has slowed for a second consecutive quarter, a key survey reveals.
The Federation of Master Builders’ (FMB’s) latest quarterly report shows the overall indicator of activity growth for Scotland’s small and medium-sized building firms, which takes in current and expected workloads and inquiry levels, dropped by six percentage points between the second and third quarters.
A weighted balance of seven per cent of firms in Scotland reported growth on this measure, down from a corresponding 13 per cent in the second quarter. Weighted by size of firm, 25 per cent reported an improvement and 18 per cent posted a decline in the latest survey.
The FMB report shows small and medium-sized builders in England and Wales also saw overall slowdowns in growth of activity in the third quarter. Building firms in Northern Ireland saw an acceleration of growth.
The survey shows inflationary pressures remain intense, amid sterling’s post-Brexit vote woes.
Across the UK, 82 per cent of respondents believe material prices will rise over the next six months.
The survey flags skills shortages in the UK building sector, with 61 per cent of small and medium-sized construction firms struggling to hire carpenters and joiners, and 49 per cent finding it difficult to hire site managers.
FMB Scotland director Gordon Nelson said: “Growth among Scotland’s construction SMEs has slowed for two consecutive quarters.
“Scottish firms are facing considerable constraints through the growing scarcity of skilled tradespeople. When you pile on material prices increases, following the EU referendum, there is considerable upwards [cost] pressure on small building firms and it’s taking its toll on growth.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here