Data from insight and research company Glenigan has revealed that UK construction starts plummeted by 39% in the three months to the end of February 2026.
In its latest Construction Review, Glenigan revealed that project starts in the period were down 29% year on year. Detailed planning approvals fell 15% compared with the preceding three months and were down 16% year on year.
According to Glenigan, the war in the Middle East and socioeconomic turbulence are “adding to UK construction’s many frustrations”.
The data also reveals that the number of main contractor awards fell 17% on the previous three-month period and was 36% lower year on year.
Civil engineering took the biggest hit during the period, with project starts plummeting 86% compared with the preceding three months. The energy sector accounted for the largest share of starts, at 35%, but activity still fell 40% year on year.
London was the most active region for project starts, at 22% of total activity, rising 217% year on year, followed by Scotland at 15%, with 203% growth.
Glenigan’s figures follow the recent publication of Office for National Statistics (ONS) data showing overall construction output across Britain fell by an estimated 2% in the three months to January, with private housing construction down 6.3%.
Of the nine construction sectors the ONS monitors, seven saw drops in construction output in the three months to January, the main negative contributor being new private housing.
Allan Wilen, economics director at Glenigan, said the UK construction sector was in a “deeply worrying position where market volatility means prices are erratically fluctuating on a daily basis, dictated by the direction of international affairs”.
He added: “As our results show, the decline in construction activity has deepened and hopes for a recovery in the second half of the year now hang in the balance.”
Glenigan said the investment climate, which had been beginning to improve, was again “becoming increasingly chilly”. It stated that while government spending commitments remained intact, “the uncertainty presented by the US/Israel-Iran war could call even the firmest funding agreements into question”.
Wilen added: “It doesn’t bode well for currently weak verticals, especially the private residential sector, which is likely to continue to slide. Equally concerning [is the fact that] those areas where we’ve seen relative performance gains are seeing this growth put at risk.
“This all makes existing pipelines extremely fragile, with no guarantee that signed-and-sealed projects will be delivered to agree dates.”
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