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Spring 2022 43 “All the while, the property market has been booming and yet further pressure has been applied to deliver a consistent level of new residential housing in order to service this unprecedented demand. Rather than shy away from the task at hand, we’ve seen the construction industry dig in and deliver and the likelihood is that many are now owed more than just a pat on the back for their monumental e orts over the last two years. “ ere’s a very strong chance that those working within the industry could be owed a tax refund if they paid for their own travel or wider expenses while working on site, regardless of whether they did so on a full-time or self-employed basis. “ e total amount owed could run into the billions of pounds across Britain and so it’s well worth a check to see if you qualify.” ‘WORK CONTINUES TO FLOW’ Joe Sullivan, Partner at MHA, says the sector faces challenges from labour and supply shortages. “ e availability of labour is now the number one issue within the UK construction sector, with wages continuing to rise. Sta mobility is high as people look for the best pay packets, causing further disruption. “Despite these challenges, con dence in the construction sector is still quite strong. ere are signs that the supply chain crisis is easing. Firms have noticed small improvements in the availability of supplies and the rate of material price increases may have peaked.” He said all indications pointed to plenty of work being available in 2022, with an increase in the Bank of England base rate unlikely to disturb the residential housing market, as strong demand persists, and most homeowners have xed rate mortgages. ‘PROJECT DELAYS SOARED IN WAKE OF COVID-19’ Delays to large-scale construction projects more than doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data released by nPlan, a machine learning startup which has amassed a dataset of more than half a million construction schedules through its work with companies including Network Rail, Shell, Kier and Google. Researchers at nPlan found that the median delay for projects completed before the pandemic was approximately 100 days, while pandemic-era projects have a median delay of more than 200 days. nPlan’s ndings make for troubling reading for both contractors and the UK Government. Costly project delays are linked to construction company insolvencies (which were trending upwards prior to the pandemic), deter clients from initiating new projects, and erode trust in the industry – all of which can be a drag on economic growth. CEO of nPlan, Dev Amratia, said: “In construction, as in so many other sectors and areas of public life, the pandemic hasn’t just created new problems, it has highlighted and exacerbated existing problems - in this case the costly project overruns which are endemic to the industry. Because this issue was not dealt with before the pandemic, we are now in a situation where projects have suddenly become much riskier. is will pile pressure on contractors and may mean clients bring forward fewer projects. On the other hand, the salience the pandemic has given this issue means we now have an unparalleled opportunity to get better at anticipating and preventing project overruns using advanced forecasting and risk management techniques.” Analysis of pre- and mid-pandemic projects in the nPlan schedule dataset suggests that nearly nine in 10 large-scale construction projects (85.5%) are delivered late - nearly two-thirds of them (59.4%) by at least two months. Nearly one in four projects (22.7%) are delivered more than 250 days late, while more than one in 10 (13.4%) are delayed by at least a year. According to Dev, the majority of construction projects that fail to complete on time have been hampered by poor forecasting and risk management. He believes one of the most e ective ways to solve these problems is to remove human bias from the planning process, instead using machine learning engines which convert schedule data into a model to deliver projects. Researchers also interrogated nPlan’s dataset to discover the speci c activities within schedules that are most likely to cause delays, and found that 45% of activities related to structural steel end up taking longer than planned. is nding is likely to cause further concern among contractors already struggling with steel shortages and delayed deliveries of steel. Dev added: “Our data shows that activities involving structural steel were causing delays to capital projects long before the pandemic started. Now that contractors are also having to contend with steel shortages and delivery issues, it wouldn’t be surprising if the median pandemic project delay shot up even more. When it comes to working with steel, contractors could well be facing a perfect storm in 2022.” <<