National Construction Pipeline Report

About the report

The National Construction Pipeline provides a forward view of national building and construction activity over a 6-year period.

The report is based on building and construction forecasting by the Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ), and data from  building economics consultancy Pacifecon NZ Ltd on known non-residential building and infrastructure intentions.

It includes national and regional breakdowns of actual and forecast residential building, non-residential building and infrastructure activity.

Benefits of the report

The report gives the construction and building sector valuable information to help it plan for future demand.

The report’s aim is to outline a clear pipeline of building and construction work to support:

• planning by all participants in the sector
• scheduling the investment in skills development and capital equipment, and
• coordinating construction procurement (particularly central and local government), which can lead to better scheduling of construction projects.

Aside from looking at residential and non-residential building work, the National Construction Pipeline Report also includes infrastructure intentions. These are of a non-building type such as roads, subdivisions and civil works and cover local government, central government and the private sector. It differs from the Infrastructure Pipeline prototype that was produced by the Treasury’s  Infrastructure Pipeline in May 2019 which currently looks at anticipated government infrastructure projects.

Infrastructure on the Treasury website(external link)

Reports

National Construction Pipeline Report

Summary of the key findings from the National Construction Pipeline Report 2021

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) commissioned BRANZ and Pacifecon to provide a 6 year forward view of national building and construction activity.

Construction activity has held up well against the COVID-19 pandemic and is expected to continue to do so

• Residential buildings contributed 58% of total construction value in 2020.
• National construction activity is forecast to continue growing steadily to about $48.3b up to 2024.

Residential construction will grow through to 2023

• Multi-unit dwellings accounted for 44% of all dwellings consented in 2020.
• 265,000 new dwellings will be consented over the next 6 years at an average of over 44,000 dwellings a year.
• Detached dwelling consents will peak at about 26,500 in 2023, whereas multi-unit consents will peak slightly earlier at 21,300 in 2022.

Growth in non-residential activity throughout the forecast period

• Commercial buildings are the most prominent non-residential building work, contributing 47% of the total number of projects and 47% of total value.
• Non-residential activity is forecast to reach $10.2b in 2025 and $10.3b in 2026.

Growth in infrastructure activity throughout the forecast period

• Infrastructure activity fell slightly between 2019 and 2020 to $9.2b. In 2020, it represented one-fifth of total building and construction value.
• Transport, water and subdivision projects will dominate new infrastructure activity in 2021, contributing 87% of projects and 83% of the total value.
• Infrastructure activity is forecast to steadily increase to reach $11.2b in 2026.

Previous years

Future demand for construction workers