Bucking Q3 rends
Although the occasional report gives glimmers of hope, and we all have our fingers crossed that the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee does the decent thing this week by holding interest rates, there is no doubt that the UK’s housebuilding market is in a dark place.
Professor Noble Francis’s latest Construction Products Association read (based on ONS data) has the housebuilding market deteriorating and continuing to do so in the most recent month. Total house building output in July was 3.6% lower than June and 10.3% lower than a year ago, now 23.5% below pre-pandemic January 2020 and 29.7% below the 2022 peak. Private housing was 7.5% down on the year, public 22.2% down. Year to date the sector is 8.4% behind 2025.
The mechanism matters to us. The majors’ spring forward sales slowed after the mortgage-rate rise, and that is now feeding into build-out from July: they are cutting production rates to slowing demand and not starting new sites, while keeping cancellations low. That is exactly the pattern in our own call-off schedule, work deferred rather than lost.
And it worsens from here: mortgage rates have risen again in September, the markets are pricing further Bank rate rises out to 2027, and both the Building Safety Levy on 1 October and Future Homes Standard next March land straight onto site viability.
However.
Against that backdrop, Scotts Timber Engineering continues to perform ahead of build trends, with the gap between our performance and the market widening over Q3, building our confidence in how we operate; however, as the market holds its breath for what Q4 has to offer, so do we.
So while we seem to be bucking the trend, we do not take this trend-breaking performance for granted and while deferrals and pushbacks do not threaten these Q3 results, Noble’s July numbers are the confirmation that this is the whole sector, not a Scotts problem, and the drag builds from here rather than easing.
Q4 is the one to watch.
James Scott
MD
External Source: Noble Francis (Construction Products Association) commentary, chart and ONS house building output, July 2026;
