Construction News – Early August 2025
Estimated reading time 1 minute
Taylor Wimpey’s profits have been wiped out by higher-than-expected costs to remove cladding from its buildings in response to the Grenfell fire tragedy. The company made a loss in the first half of this year after putting aside an extra £222m to fix fire safety defects in homes it has built.
Taylor Wimpey’s share price sank early on Wednesday as it also revealed a slowdown in sales, with first-time buyers struggling to get on the housing ladder.
According to the latest S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), total construction activity levels fell at the steepest pace since May 2020.
Underlying data highlighted marked decreases in volumes of work carried out across all three monitored sub-sectors, but a considerable drag came from a fresh drop in residential building.
The headline PMI was 44.3 in July, down from 48.8 in June; the previous post-covid low was a reading of 44.6 in February 2025. Any score below 50 indicates a decline in activity. The lower the score, the steeper the decline.
