Benchmarking is more challenging, BCIS poll finds

The vast majority of construction professionals believe benchmarking for cost estimating and planning is more difficult under current market conditions, according to polling by BCIS.

The findings, gathered during BCIS’s Construction benchmarking in uncertain times webinar at the end of April 2026, suggest the industry is increasingly having to make decisions in conditions where historic benchmarks alone are no longer sufficient to explain current market behaviour.

In the poll of around 300 construction professionals, 54% described benchmarking in current market conditions as ‘very challenging’, while a further 44% said it was ‘moderately challenging’. No respondents said benchmarking was ‘not challenging’.

The results came as the industry continues to navigate subdued economic growth, ongoing viability pressures and volatile market conditions shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, changing procurement behaviour and fluctuating energy costs.

BCIS chief economist Dr David Crosthwaite said: ‘The findings reflect an industry operating in an increasingly difficult environment for cost forecasting and benchmarking. Market conditions are moving quickly, but the data available to measure those changes inevitably lags behind real-world activity.

‘Unlike previous inflationary periods where strong demand supported more consistent tender price movement, the current market is more fragmented. Cost pressures are emerging against a backdrop of weaker growth and ongoing viability concerns, making pricing behaviour less predictable across sectors and regions.’

In the BCIS poll, more than three-quarters (77%) of professionals said they were either already seeing a clear impact from tensions in the Middle East on construction costs and project activity or were seeing early signs of disruption.

Meanwhile, 43% said the current conflict was already impacting UK tender pricing specifically, while a further 33% expected impacts to emerge within the next three months.

However, the findings also suggest the effects are not yet being experienced consistently across all parts of the industry. The largest proportion of respondents (42%) said there was currently ‘no clear sector-specific impact’. Residential, commercial and infrastructure were among the sectors most commonly identified as beginning to experience pressure.

Dr Crosthwaite said: ‘Many of the impacts are still filtering through supply chains and procurement cycles. Different sectors and projects will experience pressures at different times depending on their exposure to energy-intensive materials, imported components, procurement timing and contractor capacity.

‘That unevenness is one of the reasons benchmarking is becoming harder to interpret. Projects that may previously have behaved similarly could now be responding differently to changing market conditions.’

Among construction professionals asked about the biggest benchmarking challenges facing the industry, the most commonly cited issue was ‘having to make decisions ahead of lagged data’, selected by 53% of respondents.

Half of respondents also said market signals had become unclear or inconsistent, while 43% highlighted timing differences between projects as a key issue.

Almost one-third (32%) said they were seeing greater variation between similar projects, while 22% pointed to a weakening relationship between input costs and tender prices.

Dr Crosthwaite said: ‘Historically, benchmarking has relied on identifying patterns and comparability between projects. During periods of instability, those relationships become less predictable.

‘Projects tendered only a few months apart may experience materially different pricing conditions, supply chain pressures or contractor risk allowances. At the same time, rising input costs are not always feeding consistently into tender prices because competitive pressures and viability concerns continue to constrain parts of the market.’

The poll also revealed growing demand for richer and more timely market intelligence.

Among construction professionals asked what would improve confidence in benchmarking, 56% said access to more project data would help, while 55% highlighted the importance of a clearer understanding of market conditions. More than half (52%) also identified cost and price forecasts as a key requirement.

James Fiske, executive director at BCIS, said the findings demonstrated how the role of benchmarking is evolving in response to market uncertainty.

He said: ‘Benchmarking is not simply about identifying a single cost figure. Construction professionals have to interpret a much broader range of economic, procurement and market variables when assessing project costs.

‘In uncertain markets, the value of benchmark data lies as much in helping organisations to understand risk, volatility and the range of possible outcomes as it does in providing a baseline cost position.’

The findings also suggest organisations are adapting their cost planning approaches in response to uncertainty.

In the BCIS poll, more than half (55%) of construction professionals said they were now using project-specific risk allowances within cost plans, while 28% said they were using cost ranges rather than single figures and 15% said they were undertaking scenario testing based on best- and worst-case outcomes.

Fiske added: ‘There is clearly a growing emphasis on flexibility, scenario testing and informed professional judgement. The market is becoming more dynamic and uneven, which means traditional approaches to benchmarking and forecasting are having to evolve alongside it.’

To keep up to date with the latest industry news and insights from BCIS, register for our newsletter here.