The latest Construction Products Association summer forecast isn’t predicting sunshine for the construction industry. In the document the main worry is that the term ‘uncertainty’ and what it is actually supposed to mean or refer to, shows up a whopping 70 times throughout the course of the forecast. In 2015, the same term cropped up a mere 22 times in comparison.

The projection that has been produced this year by the Construction Products Association, or CPA, only stretches to 2019, the year the UK is set to leave the EU, shorter than previous forecasts which have stretched between three and five years. It could be that, without a comprehensive understanding of the terms in regards to Brexit, no accurate prediction could be reached and any attempts would only be speculation.

The CPA forecast that was published in 2015 went two years further that the normal three year forecast. Comparing the 2015 prediction to the most recent demonstrates that confidence in the construction industry has dipped, with industry activity estimated at 9% higher in the 2015 forecast. A most worrying point in the 2017 forecast is that the construction industry appears to be edging towards a recession in 2018. It is widely thought that although it could be a difficult time, a full recession could be narrowly avoided.

Without worrying over predictions of the future, growth in the construction industry has appeared to have suffered a slight dip in recent months, with activity appearing to decline according to CPA figures. This uncertainty is clear in a number of other industry surveys and is not surprising since the Government appears to be unclear of the different elements of Brexit, or so it has been reported.

In all, uncertainty isn’t necessarily negative, just the industry surveys protecting their own back against projecting results too one way or the other when in fact there are too many unknown variables at the moment to do anything more than speculate.