The construction industry of the United Kingdom is one of the major industry sectors in the

UK economy The economy of the United Kingdom is a highly developed social market and market-orientated economy. It is the sixth-largest national economy in the world measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), ninth-largest by purchasing power pa ...

, contributing about 6% of UK

gross value added In economics, gross value added (GVA) is the measure of the value of goods and services produced in an area, industry or sector of an economy. "Gross value added is the value of output minus the value of intermediate consumption; it is a measure o ...

in 2019. In 2018, it was, by GVA, the sixth biggest

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

sector in the world.

Scale and composition

Before the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, the value of construction new work peaked at £119,087 million in 2019, dropping to £99,651 million in 2020. Of this total, new

housing Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether it ...

comprised £37,755 million of new work, infrastructure £22,517 million, and private commercial building £24,614 million. Public sector work (housing, infrastructure, other) accounted for 26% by value of new work in 2020. The construction sector employed around 2.1 million workers (1.4 million employed in just over 342,000

VAT A value-added tax (VAT), known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST), is a type of tax that is assessed incrementally. It is levied on the price of a product or service at each stage of production, distribution, or sale to the en ...

PAYE A pay-as-you-earn tax (PAYE), or pay-as-you-go (PAYG) in Australia, is a withholding of taxes on income payments to employees. Amounts withheld are treated as advance payments of income tax due. They are refundable to the extent they exceed tax as ...

-registered businesses, plus 727,000

self-employed Self-employment is the state of working for oneself rather than an employer. Tax authorities will generally view a person as self-employed if the person chooses to be recognised as such or if the person is generating income for which a tax return n ...

) in Great Britain in 2020, with a high proportion of small businesses: just over one million small/medium-sized businesses, mainly self-employed individuals, worked in the sector in 2019, comprising about 18% of all UK businesses. Over a third of construction businesses in 2020 were located in London and south east England. Women comprised 12.5% of the UK construction workforce.

Industry strategy

HS2 construction near Leamington Spa, aerial 2021 (3), geograph 6947416 by Chris

Productivity in construction remains below the UK average and has changed little in the past 50 years. As a result, the UK government has repeatedly tried to improve the sector's efficiency, publishing (among others) the

Latham Report The Latham Report, titled ''Constructing the Team'', was an influential report written by Sir Michael Latham, published in July 1994. Latham was commissioned by the United Kingdom government and industry organisations to review procurement and cont ...

in 1994, the

Egan Report The Egan Report, titled ''Rethinking Construction'', was an influential report on the UK construction industry produced by an industry task force chaired by Sir John Egan, published in November 1998.Egan, J. (1998) ''Rethinking Construction: Repo ...

in 1998 and the Farmer Review in 2016; in 2013 it launched the ''

Construction 2025 Construction 2025 is a British government report issued in July 2013 outlining its industrial strategy for the sector until 2025. Key aims were to reduce programme lengths and costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the trade gap. The ...

'' industrial strategy, which has since been updated through the 2018 industrial strategy, the 2019 ''Construction Sector Deal'', the 2020 ''Construction Playbook'', and the 2021 ''Transforming Infrastructure Performance: Roadmap to 2030''. , the largest construction project in the UK is construction of the

High Speed 2 High Speed 2 (HS2) is a planned high-speed railway line in England, the first phase of which is under construction in stages and due for completion between 2029 and 2033, depending on approval for later stages. The new line will run from its m ...

rail line between London and the West Midlands. Prior to completion of construction,

Crossrail Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway ...

was Europe's biggest construction project. The industry was pushed into a period of turmoil following the

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

vote in June 2016. Fears of post-Brexit EU labour shortages were cited as a key reason for the uncertainty. Further disruption followed during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 onwards, and there were inflationary pressures as a consequence of rising fuel prices following the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

Health and safety

Construction accounted for 39 of the 142 work fatalities reported in 2021-22, with half of deaths over a five-year period attributed to falls from height. Construction's fatal injury rate (1.62 per 100,000 workers) is around four times higher than the all industry rate. Around 1.8% of construction workers reported musculoskeletal disorders - a higher rate than for workers across all industries (1.1%).

References

{{Construction overview Building