Featured Sector: Private Housing

The first quarter of 2014 saw a 22% rise in project starts, following the 15% rise in the final quarter of last year. We now expect a recovery in starts for Scotland which has endured a tough couple of years. There was a drop of 8% in the value of underlying project starts in 2011, a year which saw modest growth across the UK as a whole. Last year project starts stabilised somewhat but the flat performance was still worse than the UK’s performance as a whole.

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.