Reams of evidence gathered by the index for the financial year compiled by JLL & Glenigan’s Q4 2016, the amount of commercial construction rates in the United Kingdom has decreased by a very significant amount, falling 14.1 per cent to a total of £16.7 billion. Whilst this might still seem like an impressive figure, as this is representative of the levels of construction all across the country, there is evidently a large amount of concern from leading figures in the industry itself.

Indeed, Helen Gough of JLL explains that whilst levels of residential building might have increased as the year has gone on and somewhat recovered from previous difficulties, the building design and construction of commercial projects has significantly gone down in the last twelve months. As Helen Gough points out, this is clearly a cause of lack of investment from businesses because of fears of economic losses and uncertainty in a post-referendum country.

It is therefore to be somewhat expected that construction in the commercial sector has been somewhat more cautious than the building sector in this country might have been used to in previous years. Similarly, the levels of construction in the country have varied on the geographical areas where investment has been greater in some parts of the country than in others as the year has gone by. For example, building activity in the capital of this country went up by 2.7 per cent if one were to compare the levels to the year before, whilst in the areas of Yorkshire and the Midlands, construction levels and investment slumped this year by 22 per cent: so much for the government’s dreams of a Northern powerhouse. On the other hand, construction levels in the infirmary and healthcare sectors went up, as did building for hotel and short-stay accommodation businesses. Indeed, JLL & Glenigan will follow the course of building progress in this year of 2017 with the same interest and zeal.