A report by the UK’s Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has released findings, which suggest a slowing housing market is dampening the confidence of the Construction sector.

According to the institute, workload growth has bounced back in the public works, public housing and private industrial sectors, but the infrastructure sector has seen growth in workloads slow considerably.

For the second consecutive quarter, Scotland saw the fastest expansion in workloads. London and the South East are now experiencing the slowest workload growth of all the regions.


However, skill shortages have remained relatively constant with 30 per cent of respondents to an RICS survey reporting difficulties in hiring tradesmen this quarter, compared to 29 per cent in quarter two. Labour demand in construction is presently being satisfied by the ongoing flow of migrant workers from Eastern Europe.

David Stubbs, RICS senior economist, said: "The cooling of the housing market, following the credit crunch and the Northern Rock turmoil has filtered down to the outlook for the construction market.

"The construction industry is stable and a slight downturn in confidence is to be expected given the current economic situation."

The quarterly RICS survey focuses on many aspects of the UK’s £80bn construction market. It looks into the ongoing trends in house building activity, labour availability, expected profit margins and publicly funded building infrastructure projects.

The institute has 140,000 members worldwide and is governed by a Royal Charter, approved by Parliament. It is also a regulatory body working throughout 146 countries worldwide.

(DW/SP)