Procurement for Housing Scotland Q3 2024 Sentiment Report

The market’s holding its breath. Here’s what that means for you.

The construction supply chain isn’t in freefall, but it isn’t flying either. After a turbulent few years, the mood heading into 2025 is one of restrained optimism suppliers are cautiously upbeat, but nobody’s counting their chickens until they see what the new Government actually does.

Twice a year, we go out to manufacturers, merchants and contractors and ask them to tell us honestly where things stand. The Q3 2024 report captures that mood in full, with real data and direct quotes from across the supply chain.

What you’ll find inside:

• Why the ISG collapse rattled markets but didn’t break them, and what the swift recovery of the FTSE 350 Construction and Materials Index tells us about the sector’s underlying resilience.
• Supplier price forecasts for 2025, averaging 3.7%, and what that means in practice when you’re negotiating your materials and contractor budgets for the year ahead.
• The widening gap between construction output prices and actual output, why this matters, and what it signals about structural pressures still to be resolved.
• How contractors and social landlords are really getting on, with relationship scores that tell a story about an industry that’s become more transactional and less collaborative than it used to be.
• The surprising disconnect between how suppliers want to be managed and how they’re actually being managed and why 86% say face-to-face contact is what they want most.
• Practical advice throughout on how to lock in suppliers before demand picks up, how to approach budget negotiations, and how to build the kind of relationships that hold up when the market gets competitive.

Get your copy

Download the Q3 2024 report and go into 2025 better prepared with a clear picture of where the market stands and what it’s likely to do next.