How is the market looking in February?

Last week, it was no surprise to see the Department of Education take the client top spot for the 12-month period to January 2024, in the latest Barbour ABI Top 50 League tables. This chimes with the Glenigan Construction Industry Forecast which in December, forecast Education to be one of the only growth sectors in 2023 at an estimated 22%. Whether the government will continue this trajectory post-election, as this sector is forecast to be up 13% in 2024, remains to be seen. 

It was of course disappointing to read that the UK economy officially went into recession at the end of 2023, something I think most of us already suspected. But the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) are still predicting the UK economy to grow by 0.6% and 0.7% respectively in 2024.

I feel personally grateful that we have weathered the economic storm thus far and we are seeing a large increase in enquiries coming through this month, which I hope is shared by our colleagues across the industry.

As well as responding to enquiries and continuing our work on numerous projects, we have been out in the market, workshopping “The Future of Façades” with the technical team at Allies and Morrison. The future of façades will be the discussion subject of our next Façade Focus event which takes place on March 21st.

We are looking forward to attending the CIBSE Building Performance Awards on February 29th where it will be interesting to see who and what is achieving recognition and success in the construction industry, which is focussed, as are we, on delivering low energy buildings.

Patrick Ryan - Director BSc PhD CEng MIStructE FSFE