The Autumn Budget introduced several important changes to the National Living Wage and National Insurance contributions (NICs) that will impact labour costs from April 2025. These need to be factored into tenders going forward and, depending on clauses included, it may be possible to address them in existing construction contracts running into and beyond April […]
As the dust settles on Rachel Reeves’s red book, BCIS chief economist Dr David Crosthwaite considers the likely impact of the Autumn Budget on construction and highlights its potential pitfalls. The silver lining of the Autumn Budget being Labour’s first fiscal event is that it is likely to be the most painful of budgets presented […]
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has presented the Autumn Budget to Parliament, outlining the government’s upcoming fiscal plans. The headline measures are an increase to employers National Insurance and Capital Gains tax. The first Labour budget for fourteen years and widely flagged as a tax, borrow and spend budget the Chancellor did not disappoint. Much of the […]
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes monthly updates on average weekly earnings across the whole economy and by industry and sector in Great Britain. This commentary relates to ONS’s EARN02 and EARN03 datasets, which cover non-seasonally adjusted earnings, excluding bonuses and including arrears. Annual growth in construction earnings rises over 4% Construction wages, as measured by ONS’s Average Weekly Earnings dataset, increased by 4.2% in the year […]