Scottish building industry is booming

According to FMB Scotland, SME’s within the Scottish construction industry are currently receiving more work than at any time since the 2007 financial crisis.

One in two Scottish construction SME’s are expecting the amount of work they receive to continue to rise in the next few months. This is despite the growing concerns over Article 50 being served as it has not had an effect on 2017 so far.

However, prices of material within the building industry have risen. This is partly due to the amount of work that is coming in as the demand is so great. It’s also due to the fact that there has been a depreciation of the sterling since June 2016. 85% of builders believe that the prices will continue to rise as it has become more expensive to import materials from abroad.

The director of FMB Scotland, Gordon Nelson said “At a time of growing concern about the strength of the Scottish economy, the robustness of the construction SME sector is a definite good news story. Even more encouragingly, the number of enquiries for future work has risen solidly.”

“This is not to say that the last three months have been without their challenges. Builders have experienced sharp rises in material prices. Added to this is the rising cost of skilled labour which continues to be exacerbated by the ever-worsening skills shortage. The overwhelming majority of builders expect these trends to continue resulting in further increases in output prices in the next quarter – in layman’s terms, this means that builders will have to pass on these costs to the consumer.”

Builders are becoming concerned about what will actually happen once the UK actually leaves the EU, as well as what could happen if Scotland decide to have another independence referendum. The industry are therefore hoping that stability will soon be established in terms of politics so that both builders and consumers will feel more secure.