Finance professionals working in the construction sector are optimistic that the companies they represent will experience a positive end to the year, according to a business confidence survey compiled by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and Grant Thornton.
Construction stood at 37.8 on the Business Confidence Monitor (BCM) Confidence Index, compared to an average of 32.5 in the services sector and 26.1 in the production sector, and 31.7 for the UK economy as a whole.
Construction was also the most confident sector in Q3 2013, at 31.4.
The results suggest that finance professionals in construction believe that the worst may be over for a sector hard hit by the economic downturn.
Westerman: “positive mood”
However, the property sector was the most confident of all in the latest survey, at 44 on the Confidence Index for Q4 2013, a sharp jump from 18.2 in Q3 2013.
The BCM study is compiled by telephone survey of 1,000 chartered accountants each quarter, asking them how confident they feel about the economic prospects facing their business.
The BCM survey also forecasts that the general UK economy will grow by 1.3% in the fourth quarter of this year.
This is the fifth successive quarter of rising confidence picked up by the BCM survey. And the all-industry confidence score of 31.7, up from 24.0 in Q3 2013, is the highest level ever recorded in the 10 years the BCM has been compiled.
Phil Westerman, partner and head of construction at Grant Thornton, said: “In Q3 construction was the most confident sector and this quarter it has continued to rise – the story is just the same as before, there is definitely a more positive mood amongst construction businesses.
“It’s vital that they capitalise on this – we really do need to start ‘building Britain’s future’ with the thousands of new homes and infrastructure required just the beginning.”
