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Published: 01/10/2025
Each month the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) publishes construction material price indices, categorised under All Work, New Housing, Other New Work and Repair and Maintenance, as well as tracking a selection of building materials and components for the UK, and providing statistics on bricks and concrete blocks production, deliveries and stock for Great Britain(1).
Note: The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has paused publication of its Producer Price Index (PPIs), which has in turn led to DBT pausing publication of new data in its Construction Material Price Indices.
BCIS data, which is used in the compilation of the DBT indices, has also been impacted by the ONS pausing. Until PPI publication resumes (expected in October 2025), BCIS is using internal PPI modelling to estimate provisional values.
As such, BCIS has published estimated figures for DBT Construction Material Price Indices: All Work, Housing, New Work, Repair and Maintenance for February to August 2025, which are available to subscribers.
Brick deliveries down as stocks reach one-year high
Brick deliveries (seasonally adjusted) decreased by 8.8% in the 12 months to August 2025 and fell by almost one-fifth (19.5%) compared with the previous month.
By comparison with pre-pandemic lockdown activity levels, seasonally adjusted brick deliveries in August 2025 were 28.3% lower than in August 2019.
Stocks of all types of bricks at the end of August stood at 509.2 million – the highest level recorded since June 2024. This was a 6.8% increase on brick stocks at the end of August 2024 (476.6 million) and a 30.5% rise on the level in August 2019 (390.1 million)
Source: Department for Business & Trade – Building materials and components statistics, Table 9a
DBT’s report also showed concrete block deliveries (seasonally adjusted) were up by 1.0% in the year to August 2025 but decreased by 6.4% on a monthly basis. They were down by 15.9% on August 2019.
Total stocks of concrete blocks stood at 5.83 million blocks at the end of August, a decrease of 10.4% on August 2024.
What’s behind building materials production decline?
The DBT-published dataset, which covers back to 2012, showed both ready-mixed concrete deliveries and sand and gravel sales (seasonally adjusted) were at the lowest they have been, apart from in 2Q2020, in 2Q2025. Further, the Mineral Products Association said domestic cement production has dropped to the lowest level since 1950, citing the impact of high energy costs and increased pressure from imports(2).
Dr David Crosthwaite, chief economist at BCIS, said: ‘Manufacturers of construction materials have to adjust their own output in line with demand, so there’s clearly an element of production responding to a cooler market. Brick deliveries, for example, remain well below pre-pandemic levels, while stocks are higher, suggesting that availability itself is not the primary issue.
‘One of the main challenges we’ve been hearing from our expert panels of consultants and contractors is not material shortages, but the lack of visibility about what is coming. Uncertainty around the project pipeline, combined with wider economic headwinds and planning delays, has led many clients to pause or slow schemes. That inevitably flows back through the supply chain and into production levels.
‘For government, a crucial form of support is to provide a clear, consistent pipeline of work. That visibility would give developers and funders the confidence to proceed and, in turn, manufacturers the confidence to align supply with the housing and infrastructure ambitions that have been set out. If demand strengthens and the flow of work becomes more predictable, production is likely to respond. That visibility could be just as important as tackling cost pressures in ensuring materials are available to meet future building needs.’
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