UK residential starts fall 33% by value

UK residential construction starts fell 33% by value compared with a year earlier, Glenigan reports. Its latest index covers the three months to September 2026.

Residential starts also fell 8% compared with the preceding three months.

That measures the value of projects starting on-site, not the number of homes. The index tracks underlying projects worth under £100 million.

Private housing offered one brighter sign. Starts rose 4% against the preceding three months, but remained 32% below last year.

Social housing weakened further. Starts fell 33% against the preceding three months and 35% year-on-year.

For small builders, that distinction matters. Private housing improved slightly, while the wider residential market continued shrinking.

These figures don’t isolate small builders or measure your local workload. They also don’t establish whether extensions and renovations follow the same pattern.

Across construction, underlying starts fell 18% year-on-year. Civil engineering moved the other way, rising 43%, partly offsetting weaker building activity.

The takeaway: private housing’s quarterly improvement isn’t yet an annual recovery.

Are you seeing fewer enquiries, delayed starts, or accepted quotes that never become jobs? And is new-build work behaving differently from extensions and renovations locally?

• Residential: −33%
• Private housing: −32%
• Social housing: −35%