By Sarah Warriner 17/10/2016

Under: Health and Safety News

Construction News: KPI Report Shows Industry Progress

Conducted by research group Glenigan, over 1,000 industry representatives where surveyed on projects completed in 2015. Notably, the report showed a record number of projects were completed on budget, with 64% of construction phases completed on cost or better. The result is a significant improvement on last year's 56% figure and beats the previous high of 59% in 2011.

The report also revealed increased satisfaction among clients, with 85% rating their contractors eight out of ten or better on 'overall satisfaction with the finished product.'

While budgetary predictions scored well, time predictability made only slight improvements, with 55% of construction phases finished on time or better. While the figure shows an increase from last year's 48% result, it falls short of the 57% survey average.

The report also highlighted positive news with regards to skills and training. Training days increased to 1.5 days per full-time employee, up from 1.2 the previous year. The proportion of employees trained to NVQ Level 2 or higher moved to a record high of 72%. In addition, the take up of CSCS cards has also seen a marked rise with three-quarters of the workforce now holding one. These improvements in skills and training are undoubtedly a win for health and safety.

Disappointingly, however, industry profitability dropped to 2.5% from 2.8%, partially reversing the improvement seen in the previous survey. The slip is attributed to increasing labour and material costs combined with slow industry growth.

Allan Wilen, Economics Director at Glenigan commented:

"Overall, the KPIs point to an industry working hard to maintain recent levels of performance and client satisfaction.....

Looking ahead the construction industry is potentially facing a period of volatile industry workload and structural change as the UK economy adapts to life outside of the EU.

Up-skilling the workforce, delivering improved productivity and containing the costs will be priorities if firms are to respond to these shifting and uncertain market conditions."

Lee Bryer, Research Manager at CITB said:

"Continued growth in construction is key to wider success in the UK economy and can only be achieved if the necessary skills are available to deliver it. In this sense, the current results should not only be seen as providing construction clients, contractors and consultants with a rigorous benchmark, but also presenting targets for continuous improvement for industry as a whole."

Link to 2016 UK Performance Report