Commercial work drives highest growth in output since September 2020

A 4% increase in private commercial new work helped to drive a 1.5% month-on-month rise in new construction work in February 2021, official figures have revealed.

Together with a 1.9% month-on-month increase in repair and maintenance, the uptick in new work helped push overall construction output up by 1.6% month-on-month – its highest monthly growth since September 2020 when it grew by 1.8%.

But the level of construction output in February 2021 was still 4.3% below the pre-pandemic level recorded in February 2020, while new work was 7.8% below its level 12 months earlier. However, repair and maintenance was 2.2% above the February 2020 level.

New work increased in all sectors in February 2021, other than infrastructure, which fell by 3.4%.

The monthly increase in repair and maintenance of 1.9% in February 2021 was thanks to growth in private and non-housing repair and maintenance, which grew by 4.7% and 2.6% respectively, offsetting an 8.6% fall in public housing repair and maintenance.

Construction output fell by 1% in the three months to February 2021 compared with the three-month period because of a 1.6% fall in new work and 0.1% fall in repair and maintenance.

The Office for National Statistics said it had revised the 2020 annual construction growth figure down by 1.5 percentage points to an annual decline of 14%, making it the largest decline in annual growth since annual records began in 1997.

This article originally appeared on Construction Manager

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