Just under 350 members took part in the Federation of Master Builders second quarter 2001 state of trade survey. Their aggregate turnover is estimated to be between £175 million and £200 million a year, and their total workforce is just over 4,600. The ratio of directly employed labour, including working proprietors, to sub-contracted labour is slightly lower than in the first quarter survey, at around 1.7:1.
Readers are reminded that the survey sample now includes FMB members in Scotland and Northern Ireland. For purposes of comparison with results of surveys carried out earlier than the first quarter of 2001, the series of what were previously described as 'National' results are continued with the label 'England & Wales'. Replies from Scotland and Northern Ireland are included in new 'UK' series.
As the samples for these two countries are, for the time being, relatively small (so that the separate results for them should be treated with caution), differences between the 'England & Wales' and 'UK' results are small. In these circumstances, results for the different types of work, and those for 'All builders' and 'All specialists' have been moved onto the UK basis. Strictly speaking, therefore, there is a discontinuity between the fourth quarter 2000 and first quarter 2001 results for these series, but the differences are marginal.
Individual replies are weighted by size of firm, so results of each survey are directly comparable with those obtained a year earlier. For the time being, however, there is still not a sufficient run of data on the revised basis to attempt to adjust for normal seasonal variations in building activity, but where changes from one survey to another appear to be attributable to such variations, this is stated in the commentary.
From the third quarter 2000 survey the regional analysis of results has been based on standard regions rather than FMB regions. Firms are asked to indicate in which standard region they principally operate. This facilitates comparison of the survey results with the 'official' construction statistics prepared and published by the Department of Trade and Industry.
First posted: 17 July 2001. Last modified: 17 July 2001.
