Blog | 11 Nov 2022

Construction industry leaders tackle stagnant productivity

Graham Robinson

Graham Robinson

Global Infrastructure and Construction Lead

construction site

Historically, the UK construction industry has a reputation for a lack of transparency and trust. In order to combat this, we have joined some of the UK’s leading developers, contractors, architects, engineers, professional services providers and suppliers within the construction sector to create the ‘Trust and Productivity: the private sector construction playbook’ which evaluates how the construction and design teams can work in a more collaborative way to boost productivity, quality and value and in doing so reduce carbon emissions and improve the health, safety and wellbeing of the workforce.

The need for action is clear: UK construction productivity growth fell by an average of -0.6% each year between 1997 and 2019 according to Oxford Economics. Over the same period, the productivity of the whole UK economy rose by 2.8%, while the productivity of manufacturing grew by 3.9%. In real terms, this means that a larger workforce is now required to match historical output, making construction increasingly expensive and leading to a downward spiral of low margins and low investment. Operating under such conditions makes innovation more challenging.Graham Robinson, Global Infrastructure and Construction Lead

The ten drivers, outlined in the playbook, are:

The actions outlined above will enable productivity in the construction industry which, in turn, will play a vital role in economic growth and support the UK’s green economy initiatives.

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