Construction is one of the few industries that has already recovered and grown from the pandemic. Many people who are furloughed or unemployed have diversified their business into the construction industry and made a fresh start. 

instantprint a company that provide printing services for construction businesses such as signage found that nearly half a million new businesses registered in 2020 and that number shows no signs of slowing down. Despite the tumultuous business landscape, 18% of UK adults plan to start a business in 2021.  

Some of the most popular new business registrations lie in construction. In fact, there are over 9,000 new building development businesses and 7,000 in domestic construction. 

However, the construction industry has not escaped the consequences of the pandemic entirely. In the first lockdown, the housing sectors took a massive nosedive, with new work and maintenance jobs taking the biggest hit. There were also only 36 new bridge and tunnel construction businesses. But that is probably to be expected as it is quite a niche area of the industry. The public new housing sector remains at a whopping £122 million below the February 2020 level. 

Fortunately, the construction industry bounced back pretty quickly. The most popular week in 2020 to register your business was from the 29th of June to 5th of July. It will come as no surprise that this was also the week when life started getting back to normal, and the pubs reopened. Over 18,000 new businesses registered in this week alone because of increased confidence that the pandemic was over. 

A quarter of the businesses set up in 2020 registered in London. Unsurprisingly, the megacities, Birmingham and Manchester, were also very popular with business owners.

Construction output grew by 1.9% each month, allowing it to slowly, but surely, recover from the first lockdown’s hit. Although repair and maintenance fell by 0.6%, the 3.5% increase in new work offset this decline. November 2020 marked the seventh consecutive month of growth since the alarming decrease of 40.7% in April 2020. 

The construction output continued to grow by 12.4% in the three months leading up to November 2020. With increased health and safety measures on building premises, the industry grew steadily and actually managed to grow from the pandemic.  The construction work output recovered from the pre-pandemic level and is now over £80million above the level of February 2020. It should be noted that, unlike many other industries, the construction sector was able to stay broadly open across the UK in lockdown.