- Prior 50.8
The downturn in September is led by a slump in house building as output also saw its steepest decline since May 2020. Adding to that, new orders also suffered its fastest pace of decline in over three years. S&P Global notes that:
"Output levels declined across the UK construction sector for the first time in three months during September and the latest downturn marked the worst overall performance since the early stages of the pandemic.
"A rapid decline in house building activity acted as a major drag on workloads, with construction companies widely commenting on cutbacks to new residential development projects in the wake of sluggish demand and rising borrowing costs. Concerns about the domestic economic outlook also dampened client spending during September, which contributed to the fastest reduction in commercial building since January 2021.
"The survey's forward-looking measures once again remained relatively downbeat as order books decreased at an accelerated pace and business activity expectations eased to the lowest so far this year. Moreover, fewer project starts meant that sub-contractor availability increased to the greatest extent since the summer of 2009.
"Lower demand across the supply chain contributed to a robust improvement in delivery times for construction productions and materials, alongside a stabilisation in purchasing costs during September."