Data from the leading QS shows that tender prices rose 1.8% in the first three months of the year compared with the previous quarter, resulting in a 5.8% rise in the past six months.
DL&E’s analysis quotes a daily rate for London bricklayers of £120, up 20% compared with six months ago. Materials prices, though, remained steady, up just 0.3% in the year to February.
The chief estimator of one £300m-turnover contractor agreed that tender prices in the South-east were up “by a couple of points above the retail prices index, mainly because of certain specialist subcontract trades experiencing shortages of operatives”.
The jump means that the DL&E’s tender price index (established in 1976 at a base of 100) has hit a new high of 348, three points above the previous peak, reached in November 1989.
However, Tony Williams, a director of QS WT Partnership, argues that tender prices have increased, but more slowly than DL&E suggests. “We’ve just had two projects in Coventry and the South-east with tenders about 3% more than we expected. There’s certainly a jump, but perhaps not the hike that DL&E are reporting”.