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🇬🇧 UK construction hits a five-year low in April, and the cost surge is beyond what rate cuts can fix
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🇬🇧 UK construction hits a five-year low in April, and the cost surge is beyond what rate cuts can fix

Macro Soup Newsroom Macro Soup Newsroom 3 min read

UK Construction PMI fell to 39.7 in April, far below the 45.8 consensus and the weakest in over five years, with input cost inflation at 81.4, the second-highest in the survey's history. Labour's 1.5 million homes plan is running into a cost problem that planning reform can't solve.

Line chart of S&P Global UK Construction PMI Total Activity from 2016 to 2026, with recent decline highlighted by a red box.
S&P Global UK Construction PMI slumped to 39.7 in April, the steepest decline since November 2025 and well below the 50 threshold separating expansion from contraction. Source

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