The construction industry has been in the doldrums of the recession perhaps more than any other industry, but it’s understandable for those who aren't sure whether we should celebrate the recovery or be more concerned that it’s unbalanced.


Thinking about where we’re at; GDP has got back to above pre-recession levels of activity (we’re about 0.2% higher than Q1 in 2008 and we've experienced 6 consecutive quarters of growth – something that’s not happened since the 2006 / 2007.


We keep hearing that the UK economy is set to be the fastest growing developed economy in 2014 but it doesn't take into account the context that we've got one of the slowest growth levels of all the G7 countries since Q1 in 2008.

In the UK it’s service that’s leading the recovery, although we keep chirping on about the construction industry laying the foundations for the recovery, in reality we’re still not back to pre-recession operations (with the notable exception of Scotland).

Construction output has been fairly flat quarter on quarter which means the industry is still operating at about 10% below where it was at towards the start of 2008 – the good news is there has been almost 5% year on year growth over the last year.

Also, it’s the residential work that’s really driving the construction industry forwards – and that’s great, we need new homes and we’re going to need a lot of them building fast – part of the reason we got into this mess is the country didn't build enough houses and the prices sky-rocketed. But it does mean construction isn't doing particularly well in commercial work and infrastructure work (infrastructure saw an 8% decline!).

So for the time being housing is going to drive the recovery in the construction industry and fortunately the government’s plans to build more houses look to be putting us in a good position to sustain this, however there are a wide number of specialist infrastructure and commercial operators who need government and private investment in construction in order to really round off the recovery in the construction industry and bring the whole industry back to pre-recession levels.

We're certainly seeing the growth in the construction being led by the housing market with most of the construction supplies we're selling being geared towards general building supplies and residential plumbing products.

The latest Economic Forecast from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) also predicts strong output growth will be seen in the construction industry over 2014 as a whole

John Longworth, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce said “We are leading, rather than following, other major economies when it comes to short-term growth.

“Businesses up and down the country should be congratulated for their hard work and determination in driving the UK recovery, despite a number of international and domestic challenges.”

Longworth argues that it’s important to maintain confidence in order for recovery to really take hold. He suggests interest rates need to be handled with care by the Bank of England commenting that future increases should very modest and implemented gradually over an extended period of time so as not to shock the market. Whilst the commercial and infrastructure elements of the construction industry recover this could be very important for maintaining growth in construction’s housing led growth.