The construction industry supply chain is complicated and relies on goods arriving at builder’s merchants and construction sites from all over the world. This means however, that expected delivery dates are often affected by world events. Events such as a virus causing a global pandemic, the UK’s exit from the EU and an ultra large container ship getting stuck in the Suez. All of these have contributed, to a greater or lesser degree to the materials shortages being experienced throughout the UK at present.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost all aspects of day to day life across the world. Global death tolls have been and still are high, businesses have been closed, manufacturing of many items has been interrupted and transport has been affected due to travel restrictions. Through all of this, however, the construction industry has continued with new build housing developments up and down the country and major DIY stores are reporting a boom in home improvements projects fuelled by office staff working from home. This is borne out by the fact that leading UK DIY stores have been limiting customers to five bags of concrete based products such as postcrete, due to supply shortages.

Approximately 60% of imported materials used by the UK construction industry comes from the EU, including 80% of the softwood. 90% of the softwood used for new housing developments is imported from Europe. Increased congestion at UK ports since the turn of the year, caused by BREXIT, has led to inevitable delays.

The shortage of many concrete based products is being fuelled by a variety of factors, including: increased global demand driven by China's huge infrastructure projects, a lack of ships to sustain international distribution and record U.S. residential construction. China produced an estimated 2.2 billion metric tons in 2020, over half of the world's cement.

Roof tiles were the most common material shortage reported by roofing contractors in the final quarter of 2020, with almost half of firms struggling to get hold of them. Due to this short supply, lead times for concrete tiles have, in some cases, tripled to around three months

It seems incredible that the recent grounding of one containership, the Ever Given, in the Suez Canal can have a noticeable effect on the shelves of stores and warehouses across Europe, including the UK. At 400m long (the length of 4 football pitches) the Ever Given has the capacity to carry 20,000 20-ft shipping containers. That in itself, is a substantial amount of trade, but as well as the vessel itself being stuck, it was responsible for around 400 other ships being held in position and substantially delayed, while salvage experts attempted to free the giant ship. The Ever Given and its cargo was subsequently impounded by Egyptian authorities against non-payment of compensation demanded by the government. The probability is, that among those thousands of containers will be large amounts of screws, fixings, plumbing items, electrical products and concrete.

Once these container ships reach their European destinations, there may be a slight easing of some product shortages, however it should be noted that there is actually, a world shortage of container ship capacity, which this incident has only compounded in the short term.

In the consumer world of building materials, a lack, or shortage of supply will inevitably mean increases in price to the end user and this trend has been obvious in the last year.

Prices of paint and cement have both risen by about a third in the past year, with timber price increases, over the same period, being reported as even more substantial.  Another factor in the rising price scenario is the shortage of container ships and container space and once again, when demand outstrips supply, prices increase. Container companies have also been wary of selling container space to UK customers as they have been aware of long delays at British container ports, caused mostly by Brexit.

This perfect storm of higher raw material prices, lower manufacturing rates, higher transportation costs and a much higher global demand for building and construction materials, fuelled partly by large infrastructure projects in China and an aggressive house building programme across the whole of the US, has brought about the current situation.

However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Manufacturing is now getting back to normal in many of the industry’s main supplier countries in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here in the UK, container ports are now flowing more freely as the paperwork situation brought about by early confusion around Brexit has eased. Global demand for building and construction materials remains high and projections indicate that it will continue at a high level.  Taking all of this into consideration, expectation is that prices will also remain high with delivery times extended for some time, however, it is expected that over the next few months, rises in prices will level out and delivery times will shorten

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