Nobody really knows and that’s the problem…
There’s no shortage of opinions. Planning reform is either going to unlock a generation of new homes or get bogged down in the same structural delays that have derailed every previous attempt. Build costs are either stabilising or still squeezing margins, depending on who you ask. Confidence is either returning or cautiously on hold, depending on the type of business and the region.
The reality is that most of the conversation happening in this sector is anecdotal. It’s based on what one MD told another over coffee, or what a consultant read in a trade publication that was itself based on a survey of 50 people. And that’s not a criticism, it’s just how industries tend to operate when no one has pulled the data together properly.
That’s what we’re trying, in a small way, to change.
why we’re running this survey
We work with housebuilders every day, and we sit in the middle of a lot of conversations that the wider market never hears. We talk to Hiring Managers about headcount freezes and growth plans. We talk to Directors about the challenges that keep them up at night. We talk to candidates about the roles they’d leave for and the businesses they’re watching.
What we’ve noticed is that the picture emerging from those conversations doesn’t always match the version being reported publicly. There’s a more nuanced, more honest story about the state of UK housebuilding, and we think it’s worth telling.
The State of Housebuilding UK Report is our attempt to tell it. Not through headlines or analyst forecasts, but through direct input from the people actually delivering homes across the country.
what we want to understand
The survey covers the issues that come up most consistently in our conversations: market confidence, planning and delivery challenges, hiring activity, business sentiment, and where people think the sector is heading over the next 12 months.
The findings will be published as a report and shared across the industry. Our aim is simply to create a just a clear, honest read of where the sector stands.
how to take part
It takes around five minutes. All responses are confidential and reported in aggregate only, meaning no individual or company data will be identifiable.
If you work in housebuilding or wider property markets, your input would make a genuine difference to the quality of the findings.
