Economic Significance of Maintenance Report

Repair and maintenance (R&M) expenditure is the cost incurred to bring an asset back to an earlier condition or to keep the asset operating at its present condition. Building maintenance and repairs make an important contribution to the country’s wealth and wellbeing.

BCIS publishes the Economic Significance of Maintenance report annually to evaluate the value of the work carried out in this sector.

Maintenance expenditure in 2022 highest proportion of GDP in last 10 years

Total maintenance expenditure in 2022 (at current prices) is estimated to be £86.1bn, the latest Economic Significance of Maintenance report estimates. At constant prices, this represents a 7% increase on 2021.

Further, at current prices, total maintenance expenditure represented 3.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, which is the highest level in the past 10 years.

The BCIS estimate is made up of R&M construction output, the estimated amount of work performed by directly employed maintenance workers in other industries, and the amount of money householders spend on maintaining their properties that is not included elsewhere.

Estimates also show that, at current prices, in 2022:

• Contractors’ output for work in the R&M sector accounted for 35.5% of all construction output, the same as the previous year
• The amount that householders spent on goods, services, and insurance related to maintaining their homes was 1.1% of total consumer spending, which is the lowest figure in the past 10 years
• Householders spent £8.6bn on DIY goods

The full Economic significance of maintenance report 2024 is published in the BCIS Briefing section, as part of the BCIS OpX.

The 2023 report, covering expenditure in 2021, is available to download as a white paper to illustrate its scope and coverage. You can download here.