Residential building was the main reason for the drag in overall construction activity in February, being the weakest-performing segment (37.0) once again. That being said, there were also contractions in both commercial construction activity (46.5) and civil engineering work (41.0) with the latter slumping to its softest since September last year.<\/p>\n
S&P Global notes that:<\/p>\n
“A sharper downturn in house building was the main
\nfactor behind the setback for UK construction activity
\nin February, following some signs of stabilisation at the
\nstart of 2026. Total industry activity has decreased in
\neach month since January 2025 and the latest decline
\nwas faster than seen on average over this period. The
\nreduction in output was largely due to sluggish demand
\nconditions, but some firms also noted that exceptionally
\nwet weather had disrupted construction projects.\n<\/p>\n
“Construction companies were hopeful of a turnaround
\nin business activity over the year ahead, with optimism
\nlevels hitting a 14-month high in February. This was often
\nlinked to forthcoming new projects in the infrastructure
\nand energy sectors, as well as projected improvements in
\nbroader economic conditions.\n<\/p>\n
“Sharply rising input costs were a challenge in February.
\nThe rate of purchasing price inflation hit a seven-month
\nhigh as suppliers passed on rising raw material costs,
\nespecially metals.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residential building was the main reason for the drag in overall construction activity in February, being the weakest-performing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-314817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}