Has the Construction Industry become better, or just busier?

The construction industry looks forward to brightening market prospects over the next few years, but faces significant challenges as well as opportunities. The challenges include expanding the workforce, incorporating new technologies and ways of working, and managing rising costs. The prize could be a greener, more profitable industry that exceeds the expectations of its customers.

The UK construction Key Performance Indicators allow us to judge where the industry is starting from as it moves towards these goals. Compiled from responses from the client, contractors and consultants of completed construction projects, the KPIs provide a valuable assessment of how the protracted downturn in industry output, followed by rapid growth in workloads, has impacted upon the industry and its performance.

Last year’s findings suggested that challenging economic conditions undermined the industry’s efforts to deliver improved services to clients. Profit margins dropped to just 2.1%, the lowest found since the launch of the KPIs in 1999. More positively, project cost predictability hit a record level, with 67% of schemes completing to budget.

What are KPIs for?

Moving into their 16th year, the KPIs help industry stakeholders to assess and analyse the industry's improvement over the short and long term. Sponsorship from CITB allows Glenigan to provide the headline indicators free to the construction industry and anyone interested in improving its outputs. The report is also supported by Department for Business Innovation and Skills, Constructing Excellence and BRE SMARTWaste, all bodies striving to take construction forward.

KPIs also have a tangible use for competing to win work in the industry. They give firms who work above and beyond industry norms a clear metric to demonstrate their capabilities to current and potential clients. They also show less exceptional firms what levels of performance they need to achieve to match or exceed their competition.

Coming up soon

The 2015 UK Construction KPIs, to be launched on September 17th, will reveal the impact of rising costs and constrained capacity on industry performance. Have recent strides in time and cost predictability been sustained? The findings will also shed light on key issues such as workforce skills, environmental impacts, profit margins, and clients’ perceptions of what they receive from their contractors and consultants.

For in-depth discussion of the 2015 findings, join us at the launch on Thursday September 17th at the BIS Conference Centre in London. Guests will also receive an exclusive copy of the report at the launch event, ahead of its release to the market. Book your place now.