{ "query": "UK construction market price trends May 2026 inflation steel sector outlook", "raw_results": [ { "url": "https://ww3.rics.org/uk/en/journals/construction-journal/budget-preview.html", "title": "What is the economic outlook for 2026? | Journals - MODUS | RICS", "content": "The chancellor has vowed to avoid inflationary tax hikes, suggesting the package will prioritise other tax increases over VAT or duties, which would be more problematic for the sector.\n\n## Concluding remarks\n\nThe UK construction sector approaches 2026 in a delicate position.\n\nThe key variable remains timing. The sector's interest-rate sensitivity means it will be among the first to benefit from cheaper borrowing, potentially reviving stalled projects and improving development viability.\n\nActivity has softened, confidence is muted and structural challenges around planning and skills persist. Yet the macroeconomic environment is shifting more favourably than seemed possible just weeks ago. [...] Bailey described inflation risks as 'less pressing' and expressed preference to 'wait and see if the durability in disinflation is confirmed', which represents a pivot that markets have interpreted as a precursor to further easing.\n\nThe fact that since those comments were made unemployment has risen to 5%, the highest since the pandemic, only reinforces the more dovish stance.\n\nAs a result, Oxford Economics now expects the base rate to reach 3.25% by the end of 2026.\n\nThis marks a significant departure from earlier autumn expectations. Inflation, which peaked at 3.8% in the latest reported data, is now forecast to ease more decisively. [...] Nevertheless, this headline resilience conceals underlying fragilities: sectoral performance is diverging sharply, and confidence remains cautious amid ongoing domestic policy uncertainties and geopolitical pressures.\n\n## Interest rates and inflation\n\nPerhaps the most consequential shift for the construction outlook over recent weeks has been the evolving stance of the Bank of England.\n\nThe banks' interest rates remained at 4% in November after a narrow 5­­:4 vote, but signalling from Governor Andrew Bailey, who cast the deciding vote, has since opened the door to a December rate cut.", "score": 0.8201387, "raw_content": null }, { "url": "https://www.arcadis.com/en-gb/insights/perspectives/europe/united-kingdom/uk-construction-market-view-spring-2026", "title": "UK Construction Market Outlook Spring 2026 - Arcadis", "content": "The Spring 2026 Arcadis UK Market View examines the forces shaping the UK construction market, from shifts in sector performance and regional activity to emerging cost pressures and long-term infrastructure investment.\n\n## UK construction industry trends, growth, and inflation insights\n\nThe Spring 2026 Arcadis UK Market View provides a data-driven perspective on the forces shaping the UK construction sector. The report combines market research and analysis, sector insights, and forward-looking forecasts to help industry leaders navigate an uncertain recovery.\n\nConstruction growth and sector performance analysis—how residential, commercial, infrastructure, and public sectors are diverging in a two-speed recovery. [...] What is the forecast for UK construction inflation?\n\n Construction cost inflation is expected to remain moderate in the near term due to soft demand and competitive pressure across supply chains. However, rising commodity and energy prices, labour shortages, and increased infrastructure investment could create renewed inflationary pressure as market activity strengthens.\n How will building costs change in 2026? [...] ## The state of the construction market in the UK\n\nThe UK construction sector has entered 2026 facing an uneven recovery. After a promising start to 2025, activity slowed significantly in the second half of the year, with new build output declining even as the pipeline of future work continued to grow.\n\nAffordability pressures, regulatory complexity, and delayed investment decisions are slowing the conversion of projects from planning to delivery, particularly in the residential sector. At the same time, other parts of the market—including commercial development and infrastructure investment—are showing early signs of renewed momentum.", "score": 0.76951396, "raw_content": null }, { "url": "https://www.steelonthenet.com/resources/market-data/market-outlook.html", "title": "Steel Market Forecast 2026-2027 | Global Price Outlook & Analysis", "content": "In the United States, Section 232 tariffs — raised to 50% in June 2025 — continue to insulate the domestic market significantly from world price levels, with US HRC prices well above Asian benchmarks. This divergence is structural for as long as the tariffs remain in place. In the UK, the current steel safeguard also expires on 30 June 2026, to be replaced by a new trade defence mechanism from 1 July 2026 with substantially lower import quotas and a 50% out-of-quota tariff, mirroring the EU approach.( The UK's own CBAM is not expected until 2027, leaving a brief window of reduced regulatory protection in H1 2026. Over time, CBAM and tightened safeguards are expected to accelerate the shift toward EAF-based and lower-carbon steelmaking, benefiting scrap-intensive producers globally. [...] | Product | Current Price (May 2026) | Estimated Uplift (Central Case, H2 2026) | Key Driver |\n --- --- |\n| HRC (N. Europe, ex-works) | ~€700/t | +€50–80/t | 4.3 Mt import reduction; quota ~25% of recent flat import volumes |\n| CRC / metallic coated | ~€830–850/t | +€50–80/t | Tracks HRC; CBAM adds further cost pressure on non-EU origins |\n| Rebar (Germany, delivered) | ~€600/t | +€20–40/t | Import penetration already low in W. Europe; Turkey (key supplier) most exposed |\n| Wire rod / light sections | ~€650–700/t | +€20–60/t | Wider range reflects variable import exposure by country and grade | [...] Returning to the price cycle analysis above, the historical average trough-to-peak interval of 4–5 years — measured from what now appears to be a cycle trough in mid-2024 — would ordinarily suggest a recovery commencing in 2026–27. However, in the current cycle, regulatory factors are likely to be a more important driver of European price recovery than the cyclical mechanism alone. The combination of CBAM (payments falling due in 2027), the tightened EU and UK safeguard regimes (both effective July 2026), and continued US Section 232 protection is progressively building a regulatory floor under Western steel prices that structural overcapacity — on its own — would not deliver. On this basis, Steelonthenet.com expects little meaningful price recovery in 2026, with a more substantive upturn", "score": 0.74961954, "raw_content": null }, { "url": "https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/analysis/why-2026-better-days-uk-construction-industry", "title": "Why 2026 may bring better days for the UK construction ...", "content": "This time last year, industry commentators were suggesting that the UK economy remained on “recession watch”. This brought with it some significant challenges for UK construction going into 2025. Heading into 2026, it would appear that the situation is looking a little more positive. Predictions are of a “measured recovery” and “opportunity for reset”, hot on the heels of an interest rate cut by the Bank of England intended to help further stimulate growth. This can be set against a background of significant transformation for the industry, in economic, regulatory and technological terms. While the overall view might be one of modest growth, rates of progress are likely to be patchy, depending on sector specific drivers and the continuing effect of macro-economic forces. [...] The defence sector is likely to be a major growth area for construction in 2026, as is amply illustrated in the NISTA pipeline, including further development and upgrading of accommodation, as well as augmenting the UK industrial defence and security capabilities.\n\n###### Transport\n\nThe next year will also be an important one for the continued delivery of transport schemes, including some of the largest projects currently under way in the UK. [...] In headline terms, depending on which analysis is being followed, 2026 output is expected to be up by anywhere between 3.5% and 4.5% when compared with 2025. This is not stellar performance, but by comparison with previous years may start to encourage some optimism that a corner may have been turned. Just about.\n\n#### Read more about UK construction\n\n Liability, mitigation and communication: the big lessons for UK construction from 2025’s court rulings\n Sustainability, safety and strategic reform among UK construction trends in 2025\n The UK construction industry has had another hard year\n\n### Where growth might come from\n\n###### Housing", "score": 0.6959795, "raw_content": null }, { "url": "https://www.tmhcc.com/en/news-and-articles/thought-leadership/uk-construction-sector-report-april-2026", "title": "UK Construction Sector Report Report April 2026 - Tokio Marine HCC", "content": "One of the sector’s few genuine improvements heading into\n2026 was the normalisation of input cost inflation. Construction\nmaterial prices had dipped into mild deflation in mid-2023\nfollowing the 2022 peak. Output price inflation, running at 2.7%\ny/y in September 2025 (the latest available ONS data13 had,\nfor the first time in several years, exceeded input price inflation,\nproviding some relief to margins that had been compressed for\nyears. At the 2022 peak, input price inflation reached around\n25% y/y while output price inflation peaked at 12% - a gap of\n13 percentage points that eroded sector balance sheets over\nan extended period and from which many firms had not fully\nrecovered before the current shock arrived. That supportive\ndynamic is now at serious risk of reversal [...] #### Outlook\n\nUK construction enters Q2 2026 with a genuine long term workload – an infrastructure pipeline, a structural housing deficit, ageing stock needing renovation, and legally binding decarbonisation commitments – but faces conditions in which doing that work has become genuinely harder than it was six months ago. The Iran conflict has not created UK construction’s structural problems, but it has arrived at the worst possible moment, deepening existing vulnerabilities and deferring what looked, in late 2025, like a credible recovery trajectory.\n\n#### Base Case: H1 2026 Remains the Pressure Point [...] #### Channel 1: Input Cost Inflation\n\nEnergy is a significant direct cost for construction companies –\npowering plant, machinery, site facilities and transport logistics.\nBeyond energy itself, construction’s material inputs are heavily\nenergy-intensive to produce: cement, bricks, steel, aluminium and\nglass all require substantial energy to manufacture, meaning that\nsustained energy price elevation feeds through into the cost of\nprimary materials with a lag of weeks to months.", "score": 0.6654328, "raw_content": null } ], "formatted": "Source: What is the economic outlook for 2026? | Journals - MODUS | RICS\nURL: https://ww3.rics.org/uk/en/journals/construction-journal/budget-preview.html\nThe chancellor has vowed to avoid inflationary tax hikes, suggesting the package will prioritise other tax increases over VAT or duties, which would be more problematic for the sector. ## Concluding remarks The UK construction sector approaches 2026 in a delicate position. The key variable remains timing. The sector's interest-rate sensitivity means it will be among the first to benefit from cheaper borrowing, potentially reviving stalled projects and improving development viability. Activity has softened, confidence is muted and structural challenges around planning and skills persist. Yet the macroeconomic environment is shifting more favourably than seemed possible just weeks ago. [...] Bailey described inflation risks as 'less pressing' and expressed preference to 'wait and see if the durability in disinflation is confirmed', which represents a pivot that markets have interpreted as a precursor to further easing. The fact that since those comments were made unemployment has risen to 5%, the highest since the pandemic, only reinforces the more dovish stance. As a result, Oxford Economics now expects the base rate to reach 3.25% by the end of 2026. This marks a significant departure from earlier autumn expectations. Inflation, which peaked at 3.8% in the latest reported data, is now forecast to ease more decisively. [...] Nevertheless, this headline resilience conceals underlying fragilities: sectoral performance is diverging sharply, and confidence remains cautious amid ongoing domestic policy uncertainties and geopolitical pressures. ## Interest rates and inflation Perhaps the most consequential shift for the construction outlook over recent weeks has been the evolving stance of the Bank of England. The banks' interest rates remained at 4% in November after a narrow\n\n---\n\nSource: UK Construction Market Outlook Spring 2026 - Arcadis\nURL: https://www.arcadis.com/en-gb/insights/perspectives/europe/united-kingdom/uk-construction-market-view-spring-2026\nThe Spring 2026 Arcadis UK Market View examines the forces shaping the UK construction market, from shifts in sector performance and regional activity to emerging cost pressures and long-term infrastructure investment. ## UK construction industry trends, growth, and inflation insights The Spring 2026 Arcadis UK Market View provides a data-driven perspective on the forces shaping the UK construction sector. The report combines market research and analysis, sector insights, and forward-looking forecasts to help industry leaders navigate an uncertain recovery. Construction growth and sector performance analysis—how residential, commercial, infrastructure, and public sectors are diverging in a two-speed recovery. [...] What is the forecast for UK construction inflation? Construction cost inflation is expected to remain moderate in the near term due to soft demand and competitive pressure across supply chains. However, rising commodity and energy prices, labour shortages, and increased infrastructure investment could create renewed inflationary pressure as market activity strengthens. How will building costs change in 2026? [...] ## The state of the construction market in the UK The UK construction sector has entered 2026 facing an uneven recovery. After a promising start to 2025, activity slowed significantly in the second half of the year, with new build output declining even as the pipeline of future work continued to grow. Affordability pressures, regulatory complexity, and delayed investment decisions are slowing the conversion of projects from planning to delivery, particularly in the residential sector. At the same time, other parts of the market—including commercial development and infrastructure investment—are showing early signs of renewed momentum.\n\n---\n\nSource: Steel Market Forecast 2026-2027 | Global Price Outlook & Analysis\nURL: https://www.steelonthenet.com/resources/market-data/market-outlook.html\nIn the United States, Section 232 tariffs — raised to 50% in June 2025 — continue to insulate the domestic market significantly from world price levels, with US HRC prices well above Asian benchmarks. This divergence is structural for as long as the tariffs remain in place. In the UK, the current steel safeguard also expires on 30 June 2026, to be replaced by a new trade defence mechanism from 1 July 2026 with substantially lower import quotas and a 50% out-of-quota tariff, mirroring the EU approach.( The UK's own CBAM is not expected until 2027, leaving a brief window of reduced regulatory protection in H1 2026. Over time, CBAM and tightened safeguards are expected to accelerate the shift toward EAF-based and lower-carbon steelmaking, benefiting scrap-intensive producers globally. [...] | Product | Current Price (May 2026) | Estimated Uplift (Central Case, H2 2026) | Key Driver | --- --- | | HRC (N. Europe, ex-works) | ~€700/t | +€50–80/t | 4.3 Mt import reduction; quota ~25% of recent flat import volumes | | CRC / metallic coated | ~€830–850/t | +€50–80/t | Tracks HRC; CBAM adds further cost pressure on non-EU origins | | Rebar (Germany, delivered) | ~€600/t | +€20–40/t | Import penetration already low in W. Europe; Turkey (key supplier) most exposed | | Wire rod / light sections | ~€650–700/t | +€20–60/t | Wider range reflects variable import exposure by country and grade | [...] Returning to the price cycle analysis above, the historical average trough-to-peak interval of 4–5 years — measured from what now appears to be a cycle trough in mid-2024 — would ordinarily suggest a recovery commencing in 2026–27. However, in the current cycle, regulatory factors are likely to be a more important driver of European price recovery than the cyclical mechanism alone. The combi\n\n---\n\nSource: Why 2026 may bring better days for the UK construction ...\nURL: https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/analysis/why-2026-better-days-uk-construction-industry\nThis time last year, industry commentators were suggesting that the UK economy remained on “recession watch”. This brought with it some significant challenges for UK construction going into 2025. Heading into 2026, it would appear that the situation is looking a little more positive. Predictions are of a “measured recovery” and “opportunity for reset”, hot on the heels of an interest rate cut by the Bank of England intended to help further stimulate growth. This can be set against a background of significant transformation for the industry, in economic, regulatory and technological terms. While the overall view might be one of modest growth, rates of progress are likely to be patchy, depending on sector specific drivers and the continuing effect of macro-economic forces. [...] The defence sector is likely to be a major growth area for construction in 2026, as is amply illustrated in the NISTA pipeline, including further development and upgrading of accommodation, as well as augmenting the UK industrial defence and security capabilities. ###### Transport The next year will also be an important one for the continued delivery of transport schemes, including some of the largest projects currently under way in the UK. [...] In headline terms, depending on which analysis is being followed, 2026 output is expected to be up by anywhere between 3.5% and 4.5% when compared with 2025. This is not stellar performance, but by comparison with previous years may start to encourage some optimism that a corner may have been turned. Just about. #### Read more about UK construction Liability, mitigation and communication: the big lessons for UK construction from 2025’s court rulings Sustainability, safety and strategic reform among UK construction trends in 2025 The UK construction indust\n\n---\n\nSource: UK Construction Sector Report Report April 2026 - Tokio Marine HCC\nURL: https://www.tmhcc.com/en/news-and-articles/thought-leadership/uk-construction-sector-report-april-2026\nOne of the sector’s few genuine improvements heading into 2026 was the normalisation of input cost inflation. Construction material prices had dipped into mild deflation in mid-2023 following the 2022 peak. Output price inflation, running at 2.7% y/y in September 2025 (the latest available ONS data13 had, for the first time in several years, exceeded input price inflation, providing some relief to margins that had been compressed for years. At the 2022 peak, input price inflation reached around 25% y/y while output price inflation peaked at 12% - a gap of 13 percentage points that eroded sector balance sheets over an extended period and from which many firms had not fully recovered before the current shock arrived. That supportive dynamic is now at serious risk of reversal [...] #### Outlook UK construction enters Q2 2026 with a genuine long term workload – an infrastructure pipeline, a structural housing deficit, ageing stock needing renovation, and legally binding decarbonisation commitments – but faces conditions in which doing that work has become genuinely harder than it was six months ago. The Iran conflict has not created UK construction’s structural problems, but it has arrived at the worst possible moment, deepening existing vulnerabilities and deferring what looked, in late 2025, like a credible recovery trajectory. #### Base Case: H1 2026 Remains the Pressure Point [...] #### Channel 1: Input Cost Inflation Energy is a significant direct cost for construction companies – powering plant, machinery, site facilities and transport logistics. Beyond energy itself, construction’s material inputs are heavily energy-intensive to produce: cement, bricks, steel, aluminium and glass all require substantial energy to manufacture, meaning that sustained energy price eleva" }