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Residential construction in the United Kingdom - statistics & facts
Residential construction, also referred to as housebuilding or homebuilding, is one of the largest segments of the construction industry. Public and private housing, along with the repair and maintenance of homes, made up over 45 percent of the construction output in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2022. Although there has been a significant increase in the output of new private housing in Great Britain in 2021 and 2022, homebuilders have been facing an increasingly difficult economic environment.
What challenges do homebuilders face?
The rise in construction costs in the UK has significantly affected the whole industry in the past years. Additionally, higher interest rates, weaker demand, and the uncertain economic environment have created even more difficulties for housing construction companies. SME house builders in England mentioned material costs, financing difficulties, and shortage of skilled workers as some of their main constraints to building more homes in 2023. Nevertheless, some of their most important challenges were not directly related to the economy, but to the lack of available land for development and the requests for planning permissions.Size and revenue of homebuilders
The average size of most housing construction firms in Great Britain was small, with 94 percent of them having seven or fewer employees. Nevertheless, the UK has hosted homebuilding companies of considerable size, some of whom were among the construction firms with the highest revenue worldwide. Barratt Developments, Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon, Bellway, and Berkeley Group Holdings were all companies from England that were dedicated to the construction of residential buildings and featured in that ranking with revenues of several billion U.S. dollars in 2022.
