Supply Chain

Major contractors including Mace, Skanska and Sir Robert McAlpine have released a plan to boost productivity in the construction sector. The framework, published yesterday by not-for-profit group Be the Business, outlines seven steps which contractors, particularly in the private sector, could take to boost their productivity. They include early engagement…

Pagabo has announced the winners on its £1.1bn demolition and land preparation framework. The majority of the 29 named firms specialise in demolition. However, the likes of Keltbray, Vinci and Arcadis are also included on the framework. (See full list of winners below.) The framework, which is Pagabo’s first dedicated…

Andy Williamson is commercial director at construction products distributor SIG The speed that products and practices will change in the construction sector is set for an exhilarating acceleration, but it won’t be painless, because the driving forces are price inflation, energy insecurity and disrupted global supply chains. If the last…

A total of 22 construction-related businesses went into administration in April. This comes after 31 firms went under in February and 24 in March. While the number of firms filing for administration has fallen, compared with the past two months, Sterling Advisory’s insolvency practitioner, Emily Ball, has suggested the decline…

Rising material costs and price increases across the board ate into the construction sector’s growth in April, according to the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI). The index said the ongoing price hikes had “started to act as a brake on demand”. Business activity did continue to grow, but at its slowest…

Bam FM, Galliford Try and Bouygues Energies & Services are among the contractors that have won spots on an £800m facilities-management framework for the NHS. In all, 154 suppliers – including major firms and SMEs – have been selected on the framework, across 46 specialist lots. The work covered is…

Morgan Sindall has managed to limit the impact of inflation and material shortages on its operations, according to a trading update issued this morning, but it added that supply-chain difficulties remain “a significant challenge”, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. “The impact continues to be minimised on most projects through…

Charlotte Eccles is senior associate and Chris Hallam is partner at CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP We are living on the verge of a climate emergency and the built environment accounts for more than a third of UK carbon emissions. That’s not a statistic we can be proud of,…

Material prices have shot up again after months of gradual decrease, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Timber and steel were two of the hardest hit materials, with both seeing prices balloon in March, according to statistics provided by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Fabricated structural steel,…

Concerns over inflation are set to dog the construction industry in the long term, the Construction Products Association (CPA) has warned. Price pressures around labour shortages, rising material costs, bigger energy bills and the Russian invasion of Ukraine will all threaten the sector’s growth, particularly in the final months of…