With the implications of chancellor John Healey’s first Budget on the UK construction industry still being assessed, we sought the immediate thoughts of leaders within the industry to get their early impressions of what the impact on the industry will be going forward and whether the signs for the sector are positive or not.
Laura McCormick, Healthcare Strategy Lead at McAvoy
“This Budget comes at a time when the pressure to modernise healthcare infrastructure is becoming increasingly urgent. With the NHS maintenance backlog in England recently reported to have increased by 9.1% in 2025/26 to £17.3bn, more work is needed to ensure healthcare facilities are fit for purpose, now and in the future.
“The Chancellor highlighted the Government’s commitment to public procurement, which will play an important role to restore public services and ensure a National Health Service is there when people need it. I believe that greater collaboration between the public and private sectors, supported by innovative construction methods to deliver, will be essential to making the most of available investment.
“Investment in skills must go hand in hand with investment in infrastructure if the Government is to turn its ambitions into action. This is where the measures outlined in this Budget, to support apprenticeships and reform skilled worker visa arrangements, could help. Addressing the workforce challenges facing the construction sector is an ongoing challenge, and a stronger pipeline of talent and the specialist skills needed to deliver complex healthcare projects will be key.”
Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the FMB
“It was a budget of many small measures, but it’s uncertain whether they will add up to drive a bigger change in the construction industry. Most small building companies do the best for their workforce but will be concerned about additional labour costs. For small building firms operating on tight margins, a further increase will be difficult to absorb. The Government needs to avoid a situation in which well-intentioned pay policy reduces the capacity of SMEs to grow.
“The ‘Your First Home’ scheme to help first time buyers could strengthen demand for new homes but has a minor impact on smaller house builders. If the Government wants more regional growth, it must ensure local SME house builders can share in the opportunities created by any increase in housing demand.
“Extending the fuel duty freeze will offer some stability to builders, and the decision not to increase Capital Gains Tax avoids adding further uncertainty. However, this Budget appears to miss important opportunities to cut VAT on energy-efficiency improvements and give small builders the confidence to invest in green skills and apprenticeships.”
Craig Carson, Regional Managing Director at Barratt London
“The Your First Home equity-loan scheme is a positive step towards helping more first-time buyers onto the housing ladder. Our own research shows that 73% of aspiring buyers feel more optimistic about buying their first home following the scheme’s initial announcement, an encouraging early sign of its potential to stimulate demand.
“Barratt London remains firmly committed to delivering in the capital, but rising costs and regulatory complexity continue to put pressure on viability. The commitment to no further changes to building regulations this Parliament is a welcome step.
“The industry has been calling for an end to shifting goalposts. Now we have an opportunity to turn that certainty into investment and get more homes built.”
Sarah Young, Executive Director for Planning at LUC
“We welcome the Government’s commitment to giving local leaders greater powers and resources to drive growth, including new Good Growth funding and £150m to strengthen the capacity and capabilities of strategic authorities.
“However, funding and devolved powers alone will not deliver the homes, infrastructure and regeneration that communities need. Success will depend on whether local authorities have the expertise and resources to turn investment into well-planned, sustainable development. Investment in planning capacity is therefore essential, including the planners, urban designers, landscape architects and environmental specialists who help shape development and ensure economic growth goes hand in hand with environmental protection.
“Ultimately, the success of devolution will be measured not by the powers transferred or funding announced, but by the quality of the places and communities it helps create.”
Amman Boughan, CEO at Pagabo Group
“As always, there were several headline announcements in the Autumn Budget that many will now want to understand the detail behind. One such focus was fiscal devolution, which was a welcome inclusion given its potential to drive local growth and prosperity. That said, the next steps are critical.
While directing money towards mayors and local areas is undoubtedly going to accelerate regional growth ambitions, those ambitions will only be fully realised if there is proper attention on the ‘how’. That means there needs to be equal attention given to how exactly money is spent, how best value is delivered, and how investment quickly benefits local people and businesses without delays.
Ultimately, the impact needs to be felt by people on the ground, which means we have to identify what matters and is needed most in any given area, down to a neighbourhood level. As the Chancellor’s support for small businesses makes clear, local high streets and their workforce are the backbone of communities, helping to shape the places we call home. As the focus on ‘good growth in every postcode’ continues from central government, delivery of this has to remain rooted in local need, supported by this fiscal devolution mechanism. Local needs analysis will be the driving force to getting this right, marking the difference between revolutionary policy and fragmented policy, and making sure that impact in communities is positive and transformational.”
Tom Brown, Managing Director at Real Estate at Ingenious
“’Your First Home’ scheme and the potential support it could provide to first-time buyers at a time when access to homeownership remains a significant challenge for many across the UK. With the cost of delivering new homes remaining stubbornly high, measures that help new buyers take their first step onto the property ladder have the potential to make a meaningful difference across the market.
“We look forward to unpacking the package of support as more detail emerges and understanding how the scheme will work alongside the wider measures needed to increase supply and support a healthy, sustainable housing market.”
Nikki Davis, Principal and CEO of LCB
“We are absolutely delighted to be mentioned by name in Chancellor John Healey’s budget speech to Parliament. This funding will allow us to open our campus up to more than 2,000 new learners.
“Back in the summer, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he wanted to see a Britain that values the hard hat as much as the graduation cap. That is a future we’ve been working towards since the inception of our great college in the 1960s. The Government has put their money where their mouth is and we couldn’t be happier; we will use this money to continue to meet construction sector needs.
“At LCB we know that technical education is fundamental to the UK’s future prosperity, so we will always support the government placing technical and academic pathways on an equal footing. We will continue to play our part by supporting young people into training and work to solve our region’s NEET crisis together.”
Ian Carey, Managing Director at Pulse Consult
“With significant challenges around public sector capacity, affordable homes delivery and restoring confidence in the housing market, this year’s Autumn Budget has come at an important time for the UK economy. Confidence and certainty are necessary to encourage long-term investment and growth, with the measures announced today not just providing immediate support.
“In healthcare specifically, budgets, rising demand and funding commitments have created a boiling pot in which the sector is truly expected to do more with less. The priority needs to be ensuring public services have the resources and the certainty they need to meet demand without compromising long-term goals for improvement. The government’s announcement today regarding the use of AI and productivity is a starting point and we can hope this drives real improvement for our healthcare sector.
“On housing, the focus must now turn to delivery. Funding alone won’t be enough. Greater certainty is needed for councils, housing associations and developers to have greater insight on funding and viability if the ambition to increase housing supply is to become reality. There is no doubt the proposed Your First Home Scheme is intended to open up the housing market to new buyers and support new-build sales. However, its effectiveness is something we will need to see in practice.”
Ed Hutchinson, CEO of Henry Boot
“Growth in every postcode has to be underpinned by a healthy housing market and the decision to introduce the ‘Your First Home’ package for first-time buyers is a step in the right direction towards stimulating demand that creates the conditions housebuilders need to get on and build.
“This, coupled with improvements to the planning system could result in housing being delivered at speed across the country over the next 12 months, although challenges around persistently higher interest rates, broader economic uncertainty reducing consumer confidence and construction costs remain.”
Richard Whitehead, Chief Executive – Europe & India at AECOM
“While this Budget makes some positive moves, it also raises some questions. Further action on devolution will drive infrastructure delivery and, while moves on mayoral capacity are welcome, partnerships with the private sector will remain essential to deliver large-scale schemes.
“The extra capital committed to the National Wealth Fund today is exactly the sort of stimulus that will boost investors’ and clients’ confidence to invest in new schemes. However, a formal framework is needed to unite local authorities’ knowledge and new powers with the private sector’s resource and ability to deliver the infrastructure that will create jobs, boost business and generate growth in local economies.
“The sector’s attention has already turned to the 10-year plan that’s been promised before Christmas. As well as more guidance on how devolution will deliver firepower for mayors, we need to see how the government intends to take greater public control of key services and what learnings it will apply to a refreshed infrastructure strategy.”
Tim Balcon, CEO at CITB
“[The] Budget reaffirms the Government’s commitment to the biggest transfer of power, funding and responsibility from Westminster in a generation, including greater local control over skills and a new local apprenticeship service.
“The priority for construction is ensuring that investment translates into a stronger workforce. This is an opportunity to meet construction’s workforce needs by linking new investment in local social housing, infrastructure and growth to the skills people need for lasting careers. The Construction Jobs Plan unites industry, mayors and training providers to help employers invest more in people and skills.
“The sector needs 41,000 additional workers every year. Clear regional work pipelines will give employers the confidence to invest. Devolution must help employers build a highly skilled workforce and enable people to thrive throughout their careers.”
Luke Brafield, Partner at Fisher German
“The Budget brought a steady stream of modest measures, but no surprises that will make people sit up and take notice. From funding for new build homes, extra funding for affordable and social housing, changes to business rates to support the high street, and measures to increase devolution, it was a tighter than expected budget which should land well in the financial market since it will create stability and hopefully enable growth moving forwards.
“In the build up to the Budget, there were suggestions of changes to capital gains tax, stamp duty land tax and mansion tax for high value homes, but none of those were made in today’s Budget and it feels that it could have gone further than it did to support those who own, invest in and develop land and property.
“What it will hopefully do is provide a platform for future announcements focused on investment and infrastructure to support growth in the land and property sector moving forward.”
Matthew Allen, Senior Executive Director at Bidwells and Executive Director of the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board
“The Chancellor’s emphasis on innovation in this Budget is welcome, particularly the Government’s shift from funding research to commercialising it. If the state’s biggest buyers such as the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and Great British Energy back British scale-ups early, and the Scale Up Fund and pension reforms such as the Mansion House Accord direct more growth capital into UK companies, more of them will grow here rather than leave for the US.
Keeping our best companies here also depends on having somewhere for them to grow and somewhere affordable for their employees to live. Grid connections and water capacity should be the next priority for our growing science clusters.”
Sue Foxley, Research Director at Bidwells
“The additional £5bn for the British Business Bank is a welcome step towards tackling one of the biggest barriers to British innovation. The UK is exceptionally well placed at creating promising science and technology companies, but too many struggle to secure the investment they need to grow into global businesses.
The additional funding can help close that gap, particularly if it attracts more private investment into British businesses as they scale up. But capital is only one part of the picture. These companies also need laboratories, offices, infrastructure and skilled workers if they are to grow here rather than take their next stage overseas. The Government must make sure these investments work together if Britain is to capture the full economic benefits of its world-class research.”
Derek Horrocks, Chairperson at Sustainable Building Services (UK) Ltd and the National Home Decarbonisation Group (NHDG)
“There were a lot of positives in the Chancellor’s announcements with a particular focus on energy security and costs. That includes the removal of standing charges from household gas bills, with a view to doing the same for electricity bills in the future. Alongside this, 20 million households in council tax bands A to D will also receive a £100 energy payment this winter, and the Budget also confirmed the expected extra £1bn for the Social and Affordable Homes Programme, taking its total value past £40bn.
“The focus is a welcome step towards fairer energy bills, and it puts the spotlight firmly on how much energy our homes actually use. That makes the work the retrofit sector is delivering right now more valuable than ever so that people can feel the maximum benefit from these fiscal measures, particularly for families in older or poorly insulated homes.
“Across the country, retrofit teams are already transforming social homes through the Warm Homes Plan funding, and residents are seeing the difference in warmer rooms and lower bills. The additional investment in social housebuilding is encouraging too, but it will remain critical to make sure new and existing homes are held to the same high standard. The housing sector’s progress continues to be underpinned by Warm Homes Plan funding and long-term government support, and with that certainty in place we can keep delivering at pace and make warm, efficient homes the norm for every household.”
Tanguy Guerer, Head of Preconstruction at Legendre UK
“We welcome the Government’s ambition to accelerate brownfield development, but removing biodiversity requirements is not the answer. Biodiversity shouldn’t be seen as a barrier to development, but as an integral part of creating high-quality, sustainable places. Exempting more sites from these requirements risks missing opportunities to deliver meaningful environmental improvements through regeneration.
“Rather than lowering environmental expectations, the Government should focus on tackling the inefficiencies that genuinely delay development, from lengthy planning decisions to duplicated submissions and disproportionate conditions.
“A more balanced, site-specific approach would help unlock much-needed homes while protecting biodiversity. We shouldn’t have to choose between building more homes and building sustainably.”