Construction new orders in Great Britain grew 16.2 per cent in 2025 to £83,335 million, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday.
The rise was driven mainly by public and private infrastructure, private industrial, other public non-housing and private commercial work. Private new housing was the only sector where orders decreased.
The value of construction new work in current prices rose 1.9 per cent to £139,106 million. Public sector new work grew 1.7 per cent, or £636 million, while private sector new work grew 1.9 per cent, or £1,915 million.
All the figures are in current prices, so they include the effect of price changes. The all-work Construction Output Price Index showed annual price growth of 2.2 per cent in December 2025.
That index is built from the cost of materials, labour and plant for a selection of project types, with a mark-up added for contractors’ profit, and is treated as a stand-in for output prices.
In the third quarter of 2025, from July to September, 376,518 firms registered for VAT and PAYE were operating in construction across Great Britain. That was 1.6 per cent more than in 2024.
Construction-related employees, excluding the self-employed, rose 1.9 per cent between the third quarters of 2024 and 2025 to 1.5 million workers.
England accounted for most of the growth, up 2.8 per cent after no growth in 2024. Wales rose 0.5 per cent, while Scotland fell 5.9 per cent.
Counts of firms and employees are point-in-time estimates taken from the Inter-Departmental Business Register, the list of VAT and PAYE registered businesses that government uses for statistics. The ONS uses the same quarter each year for consistency.
The annual publication covers the whole industry as defined in the standard industrial classification: construction of buildings, civil engineering and specialised construction activities.
Separate monthly figures from the ONS show a weaker recent picture. Total construction output is estimated to have fallen 1.0 per cent in the three months to August 2026, the second consecutive decrease in the three-monthly series.
New work fell 1.4 per cent over the period and repair and maintenance fell 0.3 per cent. Five of the nine sectors declined.
Private new housing, the one sector where orders fell in 2025, made the main negative contribution to the latest fall, dropping 3.2 per cent.
The annual figures are non-seasonally adjusted unless stated otherwise and are subject to revision under the ONS revisions policies.