BCIS polled 350+ construction professionals in March 2026. The verdict: 95% expect materials costs to rise, 62% expect labour costs to rise, and 84% name geopolitics as the biggest threat to cost stability. Workloads are largely flat – only 17% expect growth. For ConTech founders, this is the demand environment your customers are operating in right now. Read it before your next sales call.
The BCIS “Construction Outlook” webinar on 26 March 2026 did something useful: it put a live poll in front of more than 350 construction professionals and asked them exactly what they think is coming. Not forecasts from consultants working off lagging indicators. Not market reports written three months after the fact. Practitioners – mostly cost consultants and quantity surveyors – answering bluntly, in real time.
The results aren’t comforting. Materials costs are expected to rise by a near-unanimous 95% of respondents. Labour costs are heading up according to 62%. Geopolitics has eclipsed labour shortages, regulation, and demand weakness as the single biggest risk to cost stability – cited by 84% of the room. And the conflict in the Middle East? The majority believe it’s already hitting UK tender prices, or will within three months.
If you’re building or selling ConTech, this data matters directly. Your customers – contractors, QSs, developers – are navigating a market where costs are squeezing from both sides, workloads are flat, and the external variables are becoming harder to price. Understanding that context isn’t background reading. It’s the foundation of a sharper product pitch, a better-calibrated sales cycle, and a more credible customer conversation.
Workload expectations: the industry is stuck in neutral
Flat is the new optimistic
When asked whether workloads would rise, fall, or stay the same over the next 12 months, 43% of the 375 respondents said they’d stay the same. Only 17% expected growth. A notable 24% expected a fall, while 16% said they simply don’t know – which is its own signal about the level of confidence in the room.
That 43% “stay the same” block is worth sitting with. In a healthy market, firms are chasing growth. When the dominant mood is “hold what we have,” it tells you something about the risk appetite of the buyers you’re selling to. Decision cycles get longer. Pilots stall. Budget sign-off gets pushed up the chain. The 24% expecting a fall aren’t the noise – they’re a meaningful segment of the market factoring in cost pressure, pipeline delays, and the wider economic uncertainty that’s been building since early Q1 2026.
For context, BCIS’s own industry forecast points to subdued growth in new work output through 2026, with residential and commercial sectors continuing to struggle. The public sector – infrastructure, energy, defence – is providing the more reliable pipeline. That split matters if you’re thinking about which customer segments are actually in a position to invest in new technology right now.
Materials costs: near-unanimous concern
95% is not a polling margin of error – it’s a consensus
The materials cost question produced the sharpest result of the entire poll. Of 391 respondents, 95% said they expect materials costs to rise over the next 12 months. Zero percent said they’d fall. Two percent said they’d stay the same. Three percent didn’t know. That’s about as close to a single-answer question as a poll gets.
The drivers aren’t mysterious. Energy-intensive materials – steel, concrete, aggregates – are exposed to fuel price volatility fed by ongoing geopolitical disruption. Shipping route disruption around the Strait of Hormuz is adding logistics cost and uncertainty to imported materials. The BCIS data from earlier in 2026 showed annual materials price growth of 2% to January, with certain categories – electric water heaters, gravel, sand and aggregates – running considerably hotter. That’s before the latest round of geopolitical escalation fully feeds through.
For ConTech companies in the estimation, procurement, and supply chain space, this is the operating environment your customers are living in. A market where 95% of practitioners expect materials costs to rise is a market where accurate cost forecasting, early materials procurement signals, and supply chain visibility tools have a very clear value proposition. The question isn’t whether the pain exists – it’s whether your product is positioned to address it credibly.
- Estimation and cost management tools. Accuracy matters more when margins are tighter and materials are moving. If your product helps de-risk cost forecasting, this data is your sales context.
- Supply chain and procurement platforms. Early visibility into materials availability and pricing is increasingly valuable when 95% of the market expects costs to rise.
- AI-powered quantity takeoff. Speed of turnaround on pricing is becoming a competitive differentiator for contractors trying to hold bids together in volatile cost conditions.
Labour costs and availability: the pressure is rising, the pool isn’t
62% expect costs up – but fewer than a quarter expect availability to improve
Labour cost expectations were the second-most clear-cut result in the poll. Of 386 respondents, 62% expect labour costs to rise in the next 12 months. Only 3% expect them to fall, and 26% think they’ll stay the same. That’s a meaningful tilt toward cost inflation, driven partly by wage pressure and partly by an employer National Insurance increase that took effect in April 2025, adding direct cost to every hire.
Labour availability is a different question. Of 351 respondents asked whether availability would rise, fall, or stay the same, 43% said it would stay the same – and 25% expected it to fall. Only 20% anticipated any improvement. That puts UK construction in a difficult position: costs going up, supply not improving to offset them. The Bricks & Bytes analysis from earlier this month flagged that the UK needs 706,000 additional workers over five years, and that boom sectors like data centres and energy are absorbing available capacity, leaving everyone else competing for a shrinking pool at higher rates.
For founders building in the workforce management, scheduling, or on-site productivity space, this is the clearest version of the problem statement you’ll encounter. The market isn’t waiting for the labour crisis to get bad enough to act – it’s already there. The question your customers are asking isn’t “will labour be a problem?” but “how do I deliver projects with the workers I can actually get?” That reframe – from future risk to current constraint – changes how you should be positioning and demoing.
Geopolitics: the variable nobody can model
84% cite it as the top risk – and most are already seeing the impact
The cost stability risk question asked respondents to select all that apply from a list of factors. Geopolitics came out on top by a significant margin – cited by 84% of the 306 respondents. Interest rates and borrowing costs came second at 51%. Labour shortages were third at 22%. Demand weakness, regulation, and other factors trailed well behind.
That ordering tells you something about how the industry has recalibrated. Labour shortages – the dominant anxiety of the last several years – is now third on the list. Regulation, which drove enormous compliance investment following the Building Safety Act, is down to 15%. The front-of-mind concern in March 2026 is a variable that sits entirely outside the industry’s control: what happens in the Middle East and how it flows through to energy prices, shipping costs, and raw material supply chains.
“Cautious optimism has increasingly been overshadowed by concerns over supply disruption and cost pressures.”Dr David Crosthwaite, Chief Economist, BCIS – March 2026
The follow-up questions on Middle East impact are the most operationally relevant findings in the entire poll. Of 377 respondents asked whether they’re currently seeing an impact from geopolitical tensions on construction costs or project activity: 14% said they’re seeing a clear impact already, and 37% said they’re seeing early signs. Combined, that’s 51% of the sample – over half – already registering some form of effect. Only 28% said no impact. When asked specifically when they expect Middle East tensions to hit UK construction tender prices, 28% said it’s already happening, 50% said within the next three months, and 21% said within three to six months. Just 1% said they don’t expect any impact.
Read those numbers plainly: 99% of respondents expect some form of impact on UK tender prices, and 78% believe it will materialise within three months. This isn’t a risk being priced into futures. It’s a cost pressure the industry believes is already arriving.
This is the market your customers are operating in
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Join 2500+ ReadersThe takeaway for ConTech founders and operators
Sell into the constraint, not the aspiration
The temptation in a tough market is to position around optimism – efficiency gains, productivity uplift, long-term ROI. That framing works when customers have headroom. When 95% of them expect their input costs to rise, when over half are already absorbing geopolitical cost shocks, and when workloads are flat or falling for a third of the market, the more resonant pitch is about surviving the current environment – not transforming the future one.
The data in this poll points to three immediate pressure points that map directly to ConTech opportunity: cost certainty (materials and labour volatility making accurate pricing harder), workforce efficiency (getting more from teams that are expensive and hard to find), and risk visibility (understanding exposure to supply chain disruption before it hits a live project). These aren’t abstract value propositions. They’re the specific anxieties sitting in the room when a QS or a commercial director is deciding whether to take a sales meeting.
The broader market context matters too. The Bricks & Bytes 2026 trends analysis flagged that sectors absorbing investment – data centres, energy infrastructure, advanced manufacturing – are pulling workload and capacity away from other parts of the market. If your product roadmap or your customer targeting isn’t accounting for that sector split, the aggregate market data may be giving you a misleading read on your actual addressable opportunity right now.
| BCIS Poll Question | Sample Size | Dominant Response | % Selecting It | Implication |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Workload expectations (12 months) | 375 | Stay the same | 43% | Cautious buyers, longer decision cycles |
| Materials costs (12 months) | 391 | Rise | 95% | Cost forecasting and procurement tools in demand |
| Labour costs (12 months) | 386 | Rise | 62% | Workforce efficiency products have sharper ROI case |
| Labour availability (12 months) | 351 | Stay the same | 43% | No relief expected – constraint is structural |
| Biggest risk to cost stability | 306 | Geopolitics | 84% | External volatility driving contingency planning |
| Middle East impact already felt | 377 | Early signs | 37% | 51% combined seeing some impact now |
| When Middle East hits tender prices | 356 | Within 3 months | 50% | 78% expect impact within 3 months |
The poll was conducted live during BCIS’s Construction Outlook webinar on 26 March 2026, with between 306 and 391 respondents depending on the question. BCIS notes the majority were cost consultants and quantity surveyors – practitioners with direct commercial exposure to cost and workload trends, rather than executives or policy commentators. That context matters: these are people pricing jobs and managing project budgets in the current environment. (Source: BCIS)
The near-unanimous expectation of rising materials costs reflects several converging factors. Ongoing conflict in the Middle East is disrupting shipping routes and driving energy price volatility, which flows directly into energy-intensive construction materials like cement, concrete, and steel. UK-specific data from the Department for Business and Trade showed construction materials prices up 2% in the 12 months to January 2026 – but that data predates the latest round of geopolitical escalation. Certain categories, including aggregates and water heating components, were already running much hotter. The broader consensus from market monitors including Arcadis and BCIS is that renewed inflationary pressure is building as geopolitical disruption compounds existing supply chain fragility. (Source: Arcadis Spring 2026 UK Market View)
More directly than many anticipated. In the BCIS poll, 14% of respondents said they’re already seeing a clear impact on construction costs or project activity, and 37% said they’re seeing early signs – a combined 51% registering some form of effect. On tender prices specifically, 28% said the impact is already occurring, 50% expect it within three months, and 21% within three to six months. The mechanism runs through energy prices (Middle East disruption affects oil and gas supply, which drives fuel and manufacturing costs) and shipping routes (Strait of Hormuz disruption increases logistics costs for imported materials). Construction materials are energy-intensive to produce, so sustained energy price elevation passes through to tender costs with a lag of roughly one to three months. (Source: BCIS)
Broadly flat, with a slight lean toward worse. In the BCIS poll, 43% of respondents expected labour availability to stay the same, and 25% expected it to fall. Only 20% expected any improvement. That’s consistent with wider market data: CITB’s latest workforce outlook points to tighter labour markets as public sector workloads rise, and the structural demand-supply gap remains significant. The additional pressure in 2026 is that boom sectors – data centre construction, energy infrastructure, advanced manufacturing – are absorbing skilled trade capacity at higher rates, leaving less availability for other project types. Labour costs are rising (62% of respondents expect this) even as availability stays constrained, creating a classic cost-without-volume squeeze for contractors. (Source: BCIS Construction Industry Forecast)
Constrained markets create specific, not broad, technology demand. When budgets are under pressure and decision-makers are risk-averse, they don’t stop buying technology – they become much more selective about what they buy and why. The tools that tend to get funded in this environment are those that directly address current cost pain: accurate estimation under volatile input prices, workforce scheduling that squeezes more output from expensive-and-hard-to-find trades, and procurement or supply chain visibility that reduces exposure to materials disruption. Abstract ROI pitches and long-horizon transformation narratives are harder sells right now. The sharper approach is to map your product directly to the specific constraints in this data – and speak to practitioners in the language of risk reduction and margin protection rather than efficiency gains alone. (Source: Bricks & Bytes)
