A recent report from leading construction and consultancy company Mace has reignited an important conversation around productivity in the UK construction industry. Its findings suggest that productivity on UK building sites has fallen by around 20% since the 1970s, with growing project complexity, fragmented supply chains and increasingly bespoke designs all contributing to the challenge.
While labour shortages often dominate the conversation, the findings highlight a broader issue. Productivity isn’t simply about how efficiently people work on site – it’s also about the decisions made long before construction begins.
Ultimately, productivity and buildability go hand in hand. The easier a project is to build, the fewer obstacles teams are likely to encounter during delivery.
Every additional interface between trades creates another point where coordination, communication and sequencing can be affected. With more complex projects, these interfaces multiply, making it harder to maintain momentum and increasing the risk of delays.
As projects become more bespoke, the way they’re delivered often becomes more fragmented too. Specialist contractors bring valuable expertise, but they also increase the need for coordination, with responsibility spread across multiple packages and organisations. When those connections aren’t considered early enough, uncertainty can creep into programme, cost and delivery.
This isn’t to suggest that innovation or high-quality design should be sacrificed. Rather, it raises an important question: where can standardisation add value without compromising performance or architectural intent?
Across many sectors, standardisation has improved quality, reduced waste and created more predictable outcomes. Construction has the opportunity to do the same by identifying repeatable elements that simplify manufacturing and installation, while still allowing flexibility where it matters most.
This is where modern methods of construction can make a meaningful contribution. Off-site engineered systems don’t simply move work away from site; they allow design issues to be resolved earlier and make construction more straightforward.
At Deprom, we see this through the use of engineered precast façade systems and hybrid structural frames. By integrating these solutions from the early stages of a project, developers, architects and contractors can reduce site dependency, simplify interfaces between trades, improve buildability, and achieve greater cost certainty and programme reliability. It’s a shift from reacting to problems during construction to designing them out before work begins.
Improving productivity across the industry will require investment in skills, technology and collaboration. But it also requires us to challenge how projects are conceived and delivered from the outset. If we focus solely on what happens on site, we risk overlooking some of the biggest opportunities to improve performance.
For businesses involved in modern methods of construction, the challenge is no longer proving that off-site solutions work. It’s demonstrating how they contribute to a more productive, resilient and efficient construction industry.
Get in touch to discuss smarter façade and frame delivery > click here
