Featured Region: Scotland

Last year saw a 3% rise in underlying project starts in Scotland. Whilst the year starts were up sharply in the first half of 2014, being 15% up on a year earlier, we expect progress over the current year to be more modest. Political and economic uncertainty appears to have prompted some private sector investors to defer commitments in the run-up to the referendum. The final quarter of the year and 2015 is likely to see a fresh commitment as deferred projects proceed to start on site. Similarly a recent cooling in private sector projects securing detailed planning approval will hopefully reverse over the coming months.

Scotland’s growth has strong foundations; growth in the second half of 2013 was fuelled by a strong private sector, rather than the housing led recovery seen in many other parts of the UK. In addition the country’s growing reputation as a renewable energy hub will see sustained levels of investment into civil engineering works.

Official statistics show that output has rebounded during 2013, following a decline of 10% during 2012. Similar to the picture painted by our project starts data, commercial work has been the key driver of the recent upturn in output.

Scotland consists of the following Counties: Borders, Central, Dumfries & Galloway, Fife, Grampian, Highlands, Lothian, Strathclyde, Tayside, Orkney Isles, Shetland Isles, Western Isles.