Scotland wins highest amount of UK construction contracts in May

The May edition of the Economic & Construction Market Review found that Scottish firms took 28.7 per cent of the £6.1 billion in awarded contracts.

The top spot for contracts is normally held by London.

The £1.75 billion in contract wins north of the Border was driven by commissioning of the Beatrice offshore wind farm in the Moray Firth, valued at £1.3bn.

The two sectors that performed positively in May in Scotland were, firstly, infrastructure – taking 51 per cent of the £1.07bn spent in the UK over a three month rolling average to May.

This was followed by residential, which took £120m in Scotland over a three-month rolling period to May. Education saw spend of £82.4m, which was 12.5 per cent of the UK total spend in the education sector.

Overall in the UK, infrastructure and commercial & retail were the leading sectors, illustrating an over-indexing investment in residential construction contracts in Scotland.

Commenting on the figures, Michael Dall, lead economist at Barbour ABI, said: “With May figures at the £6bn mark, similar to the previous two months, this indicates a stable construction market that is looking towards the long term, with little sign of worry from the EU referendum vote.”

Mr Dall said the overall increase in contract values in the infrastructure and commercial & retail sectors, gave a solid indication the industry as a whole was moving positively.