Balfour Beatty has become the government’s second largest strategic supplier after a jump in the value of its work in 2020.
Between September 2019 and August 2020, the government spent £1.4bn with Balfour Beatty, an increase of almost a third on the prior year. The business managed to increase its revenue thanks to it doing more work with Highways England and Network Rail, helping move the firm from fourth to second place.
The increase was revealed in an analysis of the government’s spending with its 38 strategic suppliers carried out by public sector procurement data specialist Tussell.
Amey maintained its position as the government’s largest supplier with £1.49bn worth of work in the period. Tussell’s analysis includes Amey’s facilities management contracts as well as its construction work. Kier was narrowly squeezed into third place with its revenue around £30m behind that of second-place Balfour Beatty. Two years ago, the contractor had been the government’s lar
Difficulties sourcing labour – following a drop in the number of EU-born workers in the UK – are likely to push up rates by at least 10 per cent, recruiters have warned.
A decline in the number of EU-born workers in the UK construction industry, combined with a surge in demand, has created a squeeze on labour. Contractors are reportedly finding it harder to recruit workers at existing rates and are facing cost increases.
Darin Burrows, director of recruitment agency City Site, told
Construction News there had been a growing squeeze on unskilled workers. “What we’ve seen is labour rates already creeping up, particularly labourers, because we’re finding it harder to find eastern European workers.” Burrows added that, in the past, around 80 per cent of the labourers on his books had been from eastern Europe. Dry-lining, another part of the sector with a large eastern European workforce, is also in short supply, he said
Construction vacancies hit pre-pandemic level
Job vacancies in the construction industry returned to pre-pandemic levels in the last quarter of 2020.
Between October and December, there were 28,000 vacancies in the industry, matching the level seen just before the pandemic struck in March. The last time vacancies were higher was in January 2019, when they stood at 29,000.
The newly released data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed vacancies in the industry jumped 25 per cent in the last quarter of 2020. Construction was also one of just two sectors where vacancies were higher than they were for the same period in 2019. The other was public sector administration.
Output is expected to increase to pre-pandemic levels this year, according to a new forecast from the Construction Products Association (CPA). It predicts