Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
The latest Builders Merchant Building Index (BMBI) report, produced by MRA Research, reveals builders’ merchants’ like-for-like value sales for Q4 2025, adjusted to remove the impact of trading days, were -1.2% lower than Q4 2024.
With no difference in trading days, unadjusted Q4 total value sales were also down -1.2% year-on-year. Volume sales fell -2.9% while prices rose +1.8%. By value, seven of the twelve categories sold more with Miscellaneous (+6.4%) ahead of the rest. Of the two biggest categories, Timber & Joinery Products (+1.8%) performed better than Total Builders Merchants, and Heavy Building Materials (-3.9%) was the weakest category.
MD of MRA Research Mike Rigby, said: “The UK economy grew by just +0.1% in Q4 2025, according to the ONS, as business and consumer confidence nosedived ahead of the Autumn budget, ensuring a subdued end to the year. But ONS’s construction output data recorded a bleaker and more disappointing end for construction with Q4 output shrinking -2.1% compared to Q3. Private new housing (-3.6%) the main negative contributor.
“The Construction Products Association (CPA) duly downgraded its forecast construction output for 2026 from +2.8% to +1.7% and downgraded its forecast for private housebuilding from +4.0% to +1.5%. Private housing RMI was revised down to -1.0%.
“With unemployment (5.2%) climbing to its highest rate in five years (16.1% for 16–24-year-olds – the highest in 10 years), and a New Year which has seen both non-stop political crisis and rain every day, the prime minister has likely reached saturation point for just about everything.
“But it’s not all bad news. Inflation, measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), rose by +3.0% in the 12 months to January 2026, down from +3.4% in the 12 months to December 2025, and some economists are forecasting a fall to the Bank of England’s target rate of +2% sometime this year. That could encourage the Bank to cut interest rates more often and by more than expected, which could encourage investor, business and consumer spending.
“The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is set to deliver the Spring Statement early in March, amid a surprise record-breaking budget surplus of £30.4bn in January 2026 and she’s been very clear about not delivering any tax rises – in the interests of stability and certainty. These are two qualities the construction industry and its supply chain desperately need. Without that, it’s difficult to see how 2026 will not be more of the same.”
