Home / Insights / UK Construction Market Reports / Construction Market Report: 2025 Year Review Construction Market Report: 2025 Year Review Every quarter, we publish our UK and Republic of Ireland construction market reports based on our data from Market Intelligence on the Once For All platform. Sign up to receive these updates straight to your inbox! Let’s take a look at what happened within the industry over 2025. In this 2025 report review, we’ll reflect on: Top 10 contractors Published Quarterly analysis Awarded Quarterly Analysis 2025 construction market review Activity on Tender Management What the construction market looks like for 2026 What happened in the construction market in 2025? The many reports prove it’s no secret the construction market activity has declined, still feeling the effects from Covid, Brexit, and wider geopolitical issues, But for project value, it’s a different story – and a positive one. Even though fewer projects are being published, project value is on the up. Housing dominates the construction industry, and has done for the last 7 years, but there’s still room to compete within other categories, such as Demolition and Refurbishment & Repair, although there may be increased competition. Using Market Intelligence data from our platform, we’re able to track what’s really going on in the construction market, so you have the insights you need to build out your business pipeline: see what’s being published and who’s been awarded contracts. Top 10 contractor awards in 2025 Contractor name Project awards confirmed on Market Intelligence Morgan Sindall Group 238 Tilbury Douglas 46 Willmott Dixon 29 Luddon 29 Kier 27 Bowmer & Kirkland 20 BAM 17 Mulalley 16 Borras 14 Wynvic 13 PUBLISHED First, let’s look at where the most and highest value projects were published in 2025. Q1 2025 – 1st Jan – 31st March Q1’s top categories were split between housing (36%), education (16%), offices (14%), setting the scene for a similar pattern in where projects were published across the year. Surrey had one of the largest tenders at £3bn for dwellings (published by the public sector), meanwhile the North West saw a £1 billion framework for public sector non-residential construction works published, indicating activity either later this year or into 2027. Several projects were published across the South West, just behind London and Scotland, but saw high values including £100m for a New Build business park, and a private opportunity of £70m for 321 New Build homes. Q2 2025 – 1st April – 30th June London led Q2 with a £286m housing tender, which involves demolition and redevelopment. Q3 2025 – 1st July – 30th September Ireland saw fantastic public sector opportunities published, coming in at £2 billion, including a new build hospital in County Antrum and Education Centres in County Amagh. It’s not all about housing – Yorkshire saw a unique £600m opportunity with BAM Nuttall published for subsea transmission cables to be installed. Q4 2025 – 1st October – 31st December Last-minute framework tenders with phenomenal project values came in from the Department for Education at £15.4 billion in Q3 and Q4, with work secured over the next few years, mostly for new build schools across London. The Midlands (East and West) was next at £5.3 billion of opportunities, including refurbishment and repairs on a hospital, plus a New Build school. South & Mid Wales made it onto top projects published in 2025, with £500m on a few new housing tenders and several main contractors bidding. AWARDED Even though the construction market is declining, average project values for Contract Awards are on the up by the end of 2025 Q1 2025 – 1st Jan – 31st March Q1 Awards were scattered across England, Ireland and Scotland. London started the year at £2 billion of Awarded projects, comprised of a £286m private sector opportunity for new build homes, including demolition and redevelopment. Ireland followed at half the value with over £1 billion of projects, including notable contract awards in Antrim (£389m New Build Hospital) and Dublin (Private opportunity for a £270m new build data centre and offices). Graham Construction were awarded a £105m New Build student accommodation project in Scotland, which came in third with just under £1 billion of awards for the quarter. Q2 2025 – 1st April – 30th June The North West led with £703m of project awards, however, Scotland boasted 2 of the top contract awards including New Build Military Accommodation (£135m) and a New Build Community Hub (£103m). Over half a billion in project awards were in Ireland in Q2, one of those being a £107m project for 708 New Build homes, closely followed by £530m of project awards in London across 90 projects, including a £100m tender for Student Accommodation. Q3 2025 – 1st July – 30th September Ireland led with the largest value of project awards at £365m, including a £248m tender for several New Builds in Omagh by the Department for Education NI, including 5 post-primary school buildings, a shared sports centre and more. Oxfordshire followed with a £41.4m opportunity by Bloor Homes for 249 New Build homes, and £217m of project awards in Scotland, such as a £55m New Build School by City of Edinburgh Council. Q4 2025 – 1st October – 31st December Project award leaders were close in Q4: the North West inched ahead with £774m in awards, including a £300m New Build opportunity in Manchester by a private client. London crept slightly behind at £746m, with a £130m fitting out project, led by Overbury PLC. The South & Mid Wales (£233m) followed with the Education, Housing, Railways and Miscellaneous categories making up 25% each. 2025 key takeaways: London leads across the board for construction activity, with promising growth in the North and Scotland London remained top between Q2-Q4 for the number of projects (and their value) published. New Builds are where it’s at: Housing, Education and Offices were undeniable category leaders, with Offices only being taken over by Miscellaneous in Q4 for most projects added by category/sector, although some of these categories may involve requirements covering housing, education and more. Figures show promising growth in North England and Scotland, with notably large projects such as New Build accommodation, hospitals and developments. Promising growth emerged in the Midlands (East and West) with a collective £8.77 billion in project awards across the year. A record 130 projects were awarded in London during 2025 at £2 billion, contributing to a strong start to the year. But not all project value was concentrated to just London: in Q3, Scotland overtook England’s capital for the number of projects awarded (60 vs London, 29). In fact, Q1 was the strongest for awarded – 596 projects awarded across the UK and Republic of Ireland at £8bn. Even though the number of awarded projects declined quarter on quarter, to 170 by Q4, the average value per awarded project increased between Q1 (£13.42m) to Q4 (£16.47m). Insights from Tender Management – Who’s publishing Invitations to Tender (ITTS)? Tender Management by Once For All supports main contractors with their tender enquiries, but also subcontractors, by making it easier to keep track of receiving ITTs and submitting pricing. Over 167,000 ITTs were publishing on Tender Management during 2025 – that’s nearly 14,000 on average, per month (and grew to nearly 16,000 by the end of January 2026)! London saw the most packages published (nearly 4,000), mirroring the same pattern as Projects Published and Awarded on Market Intelligence, followed by Yorkshire (1,366) and Surrey (1,362). Popular package types on Tender Management in 2025 Decoration Demolition Doors Electrical Fire Floor Ground Joinery Landscape Mechanical Metal Paint Partition Roof Scaffolding Steel Supply Tiles Windows What does the construction market look like for 2026? Despite figures showing a decline in the number of projects being published, average project value is fortunately on the up. We may just be getting started, but last-minute tenders from the Department for Education in Q3 and Q4 for New Build schools show a promising sign for the market, as winning main contractors will soon be seeking subcontractors to work with. Despite several reports of a declining construction market across the UK and Republic of Ireland, our Market Intelligence data shows promising signs for activity in 2026: by the end of 2025, 804 projects were published in Q4, only slightly behind Q2’s 849 projects. Average project value per published project varied between £12.9m to £38.2m in the first 3 quarters, but by 2025 Q4, values averaged to £205 million – thanks to several published projects for New Build schools in the London region. In line with the current Labour government’s target for 1.5 million homes by 2029. the Housing category, especially New Builds, shows capital is clustered at the top and remains the project type leader. However, if your business relies on mid-lower value projects for income, opportunities such as extensions, fitting out, and refurbishment and repair are worth keeping an eye on in 2026 as more businesses compete for this space. In fact, several post-tender projects on Market Intelligence for New Builds are on their way, with multiple main contractors already using Once For All to find suppliers to work with. Final comments Public sector opportunities dominate the construction space, with big ticket items and frameworks. Housing and Education continue to lead the way, quarter on quarter, especially in London, with a higher number of projects and average value being published and awarded. But keep an eye out for opportunities in the North, Scotland and Ireland which are seeing more investment. Tender Management shows similar behaviour to work published on Market Intelligence: use them together to source and apply for opportunities and submit pricing to main contractors’ EOIs and ITTs Optimise your profile: some main contractors publish under different categories (i.e. refurbishment or demolition may appear under Miscellaneous), so include CPV codes on your profile relevant to your work so you get matched and notified Want more reports like these? And sign up to our Construction Market Report Newsletters! FAQs What’s the difference between ‘Published’ and ‘Awarded’? Published – projects published to the platform by main contractors and clients, and they are actively looking for subcontractors to work with Awarded – a contract has been awarded to a winning main contractor What does post-tender mean? Activities follow a main contractor being awarded a contract, such as finalising pricing with two-stage procurement. Liked this Construction Market Report? 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