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Residential construction in the United Kingdom - statistics & facts
Residential construction, also referred to as housebuilding or homebuilding, is one of the largest segments of the construction industry. Public and private housing, along with the repair and maintenance of homes, made up over 42 percent of the construction output in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2023. Despite the peak of activity reached in 2022, the following year there was a significant fall in the output of new private housing in Great Britain. These fluctuations have been accompanied by an increasingly difficult economic environment for homebuilders.
What challenges do homebuilders face?
The rise in construction costs in the UK has significantly affected the whole industry in the past years. Even though those costs have been rising at lower rates after the second half of 2023, construction prices are still a major issue in the industry. Additionally, higher interest rates, weaker demand, and the uncertain economic environment have created even more difficulties for housing construction companies. SME house builders in England mentioned material costs, financing difficulties, and shortage of skilled workers as some of their main constraints to building more homes in 2023. Nevertheless, some of their most important challenges were not directly related to the economy, but to the lack of available land for development and the requests for planning permissions.Size and revenue of homebuilders
The average size of most housing construction firms in Great Britain was small, with roughly 94 percent of them having seven or fewer employees. Nevertheless, the UK has hosted homebuilding companies of considerable size, some of whom were among the construction firms with the highest revenue worldwide. Barratt Developments, Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon, Bellway, and Berkeley Group Holdings were all companies from England that were dedicated to the construction of residential buildings and featured in that ranking with revenues of several billion U.S. dollars in 2023.
