It鈥檚 as traditional as Christmas itself that the New Year should start with much groaning and talk of post-Christmas torpor and the January blues. But it seems that this year the UK construction industry didn鈥檛 get the memo. Rather than make a slow and reluctant start to 2016, the industry hit the ground running, maintaining the momentum with which it finished 2015 to post a creditable 拢3.85bn of聽new contract awards in the first month.
Admittedly, that is more than a billion down on the same period last year, but the figures for 2015 were skewed by an exceptional 拢1.5bn national infrastructure contract win for Balfour Beatty. Without that notable blip, 2016 started with even more promise than the previous year, recording 755 new contract awards compared to 667 in January 2015.
聽In the midst of all of this, it was Brookfield Multiplex that claimed the coveted number one slot on our contracts league table in January 2016 with a single 拢450m order for a new office build at Bishopsgate in central London.
聽Coming in at second place was Wates with an impressive 15-project haul during what is traditionally a quiet month. The largest of these 鈥� valued at 拢80m - was for the construction of 275 additional care units at Hall Road, Leeds Road and Hawthorne Avenue for Hull City Council.
聽Morgan Sindall stole third spot with a total of 19 contract awards with a combined value of 拢172m. The company regularly registers the highest number of individual contract awards, but on this occasion Morgan Sindall lost this distinction to Keepmoat which bagged a staggering 29 orders with a combined value of 拢53.4m.
聽As ever, the level of construction activity remains stubbornly centred on London, with the value of new orders in the capital exceeding the cumulative total achieved by the four next busiest regions.
Nevertheless, January 2016 was a notable month for several key areas of the country. A 拢150m mixed-use contract win for Caddick Developments in Yorkshire helped drive the county鈥檚 monthly total to more than 拢360m and Wales also enjoyed an upsurge thanks to ISG winning a 拢80m contract to build a new headquarters for BBC Wales in Glamorgan.
The figures for Wales were boosted still further by a 拢25m contribution from Kier Construction for the extension of the University of Wales in Swansea. Kier won this job against some stiff competition from Laing O鈥橰ourke, Morgan Sindall and Willmott Dixon.
聽Admittedly, it seems that new tender announcements are still sleeping off a New Year hangover, remaining languid throughout the month. But despite wider concerns that the continued cooling of the Chinese economy might just give聽the rest of the world a cold, there remains much cause for positivity and optimism within the UK construction sector.
鈥� Neil Edwards is chief executive of聽The Builders鈥� Conference
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