How Smart is the UK Housing Sector?

Launched in 2018, the CLC’s ‘Smart Construction Dashboard’, was designed to demonstrate the performance of the housing sector, and encourage developers, local authorities and housing associations to develop the evidence to demonstrate the power of smart construction.  A key aim was that suppliers and customers could then use the information to make data driven decisions to improve productivity, sustainability and health and safety in manufacturing and construction.

The 3rd Dashboard, which uses real 2020 aggregated data, and sets ambitious targets for 2025, is now available.  It has been developed with data developed by RICS, BRE, Cast, NHBC, CITB, LC Journey and Mott MacDonald and Ekkist and incorporates new health and wellbeing, reuse o,f materials, and social value metrics.

Key Insights include:

  • New build volume progressed by 3.2%, a considerable achievement for this health affected year
  • The period of time on site to produce a home greatly dropped by 22%, possibly reflecting the increased sales rates in 2020
  • The energy rating continues to reflect the legislative requirements for the 2020 period – this will be one to watch in the next few years
  • Waste generated on site improved by 15.3%, continuing the trend of demonstrating consistent site improvements in 2020
  • Safety on site, in the form of incidents, improved by 17%
  • Productivity improved by 9%. Overall there appears to be a broad correlation of onsite improvements, which correlate with productivity, including reductions in waste, time and safety on site.
  • Health and Wellbeing measure, whilst at a low base of 0.52% of all homes constructed is growing at a rapid pace of over 200% pa. We believe this will continue to grow at pace, representing a encouraging trend.

For 2020 data, we have also introduced 3 new measures:

  • Digital maturity of the housing sector, expressed as a benchmark – a critical strategic focus with which we believe will assist the performance of the wider measures
  • Apprenticeship levels representing a simplistic measure of social value for construction projects
  • Circular Economy – measured as material reuse, a factor which we believe will greatly represent an opportunity for both reduction in whole life embodied carbon and economic material product services growth

In 2020, we saw the introduction of new digital tools to assist in the mission to commoditise measurement for the sector including a PMV Estimator (Cast), a new Construction Quality Index (NHBC) and a Smart Infrastructure index (Mott MacDonald). Progressing deployment of data and digital tools, and alignment across the sector is critical to increasing the visibility of outcomes and measures. The metrics and demonstration work group continue to increase the number of public and private sector clients and developers using metrics as a mechanism to increase build performance through smart construction process adoption.

The CLC is now moving to industry wide uptake, and is inviting new partners, who are interested in implementing innovations and driving change, to get involved and take part in critical case studies.

To find out more about the project and what’s involved contact:

construction.enquiries@beis.gov.uk

Download the latest Dashboard here.

Download the accompanying press release here.

Guide to the Dashboard:

Metrics were gathered from volume aggregated projects with organisations specializing in the capture and recording of housing performance data. For each of these metrics, there is a progress box containing a circle with a number in the middle. We have set new 2025 target figures for the sector to achieve as a build. See below.

Simon Cross

Chair of the CLC Metrics, Demonstrations and Business Case Working Group

 

 

 

 

 

 

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