Quarter 1 2025 has been another UK residential construction quarter best described as ‘in recovery’ rather than recovered. Most green shoots of recovery we have experienced in the last two years have been disrupted by geopolitical events. This quarter it has largely been international tariffs which have caused further economic uncertainty.

UK Housing starts, as well as brick deliveries and other market metrics, which as often used as barometers for housing growth, are positive year-to-date compared with the same period in 2024. However, the start of 2024 was still in a trough of construction activity after the spike in foundations put in around the Part L Building Regulations change in the summer of 2023. But, despite many individual market measures showing strong growth, actual activity levels generally are subdued, although tracking slowly in the right direction.

Since the COVID pandemic in 2020, most reliable market metrics have become detached from previous correlations, and data analysis has become more of an artform than a science to generate insight.

Polypipe Building Products has therefore started collaborating and sharing data with our strategic partners to provide them and us with greater insight, including more qualitative information to drive the voice of the customer within our businesses.

The Construction Products Reform Green Paper (Construction Products Reform Green Paper – GOV.UK) was released in February 2025, with data fundamentally at the heart of all recommendations for improvements and ultimately safety. Polypipe has the most comprehensive range of third-party approvals in the UK plastic plumbing and drainage market. Quality and transparency of both physical products, and the related data to support this, is at the core of our business and will continue to be. House builders and homeowners are rightly becoming more demanding in terms of proving that quality, sustainability and safety standards not only meet today’s requirements, but are futureproofed. Polypipe fully supports the industry’s transition to data-based construction product requirements (www.polypipe.com/housing) and we will be at the forefront of this collective industry effort.