As a very specialised UK-focused publication, The Construction Index seldom lets the stories that dominate the front pages of the national press intrude into our coverage. Least of all when those stories concern events taking place in far-flung corners of the globe.
Of course, we’ll cover general elections and government spending plans when they hit the broadsheets. But foreign wars? Hardly ever.
Well that might change soon. In fact I think it has already.
We have reported quite regularly on the war in Ukraine – usually from the viewpoint of a UK observer, curious to see how a country strives to rebuild while under attack.
And we have also seen, domestically, how Putin’s war has affected energy prices and how this has filtered down into UK construction input costs.
But since January 2025, when Donald Trump began his second term as US president, geopolitics has spiralled out of control, culminating in a needless war in one of the most unstable parts of the world: the Persian Gulf.
In this issue of the magazine, we see how construction economists are revising their forecasts downwards, lawyers are warning contractors and their clients to double-check their force majeure clauses and demolition contractors, already feeling the strain, are reporting a ‘tightening’ in the market due to geopolitical pressures.
Iran seems a long way from any UK construction site. But I bet every construction director now has their eyes on the Strait of Hormuz.