Raine here, typing with my actual fingers, not a robot. As you probably know, subcontractors can lose 5–15% on their contracts according to McKinsey and Deloitte. Well… things just got uglier. I’m digging into FY2025 year-over-year data for our upcoming webinar, and here’s a quick (and foul) taste of what’s happening in construction:
- Tier 1s paying 50+ days on average.
- Government frameworks show 20–26% loss when commercial governance is mismanaged.
- 1 in 191 companies went insolvent in the last 12 months.
- Construction accounts for 27% of all insolvencies—that’s 2,975 businesses.
- Construction roughly 17% of recorded insolvencies.
- Average SME payment times have stretched to 75 days, up from 60.
- A new Low Value Disputes Procedure launched in December 2024 to fast-track claims ≤ €50k.
- Business insolvencies rose 13.1% YoY, the most sector bankruptcies since 2010.
- A shocking 50% YoY jump in building-firm liquidations.
- Legacy fixed-price contracts colliding with rising input and wage costs.
- Tight credit and rollback of pandemic-era support.
- Tax authority enforcement waves (ATO, IRD) accelerating failures.
- Chronic late payments and retention drag starving subcontractors of cash.
If you’d like the full dataset with all the sources, just hit reply and we’ll gladly share access with you.
Bottom line: the construction sector is rougher than ever, and subcontractors are feeling the squeeze. Stay safe. Stay sharp. Stay in touch with up.We’d be glad to help so you don’t end up as another statistic.
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