A survey by the National Specialist Contractors Council (NSCC) has revealed that 60% of respondents are expecting their workloads to increase in the year ahead.
According to the latest NSCC State of Trade Survey, specialist contractors are seeing 'tangible signs of more confidence in the industry' with 34% intending to expand their business in the next quarter and 33% expecting to take on more employees.

However, 26% of respondents also indicated that they are experiencing increasing difficulty finding the right candidates for specialist work. This figure is the highest it has been since Q2 2007.

The results of the quarterly survey also reveal the extent to which the industry is still widely afflicted by the issue of late payment, with 76% of respondents reporting payment between 30 and 60 days. Telling comments from Specialist Contractors included 'late payment is a killer' and 'we have a good workload and repeat work but late payment means that our cashflow is always critical'.

NSCC is committed to improving payment practices in the industry through its Fair Payment Campaign and issued a comprehensive response with the full support of its members to the recent Government discussion paper, Building a Responsible Payment Culture. NSCC is also actively involved in the development of a construction supply chain payment charter, which is an action within the Industrial Strategy; Construction 2025 designed to 'create the conditions for construction supply chains to thrive'.

Chief executive of the NSCC Suzannah Nichol MBE said: 'Given the improved outlook for specialist contractors, it is more important than ever that we safeguard the long term growth of the industry by investing in our workforce and ensuring fair payment practices are implemented throughout the supply chain.'

NSCC contributes its findings to the State of Trade Survey published by the Construction Products Association, enabling the experiences of the specialist sector to be compared with the wider industry.