Historically, some of the biggest housebuilders have been skeptical about modular building. However, with last year’s shortages impacting both materials and labor, the arguments in favor of offsite housing production have come to the forefront: fully fitted kitchen and bathroom pods can be delivered and bolted together onsite in a matter of days; factory assembly provides greater quality control and less reliance on bands of subcontractors; wastage is minimized, and less time building homes should improve the key metric of return on capital employed.
Plus, with the number of new homes being built still requiring an increase of 24% to reach 300,000 homes per annum and meet government targets, more widespread adoption of modern methods of construction (MMC) is becoming the norm, as these numbers would be an extremely tall order using traditional methods of construction alone.
Building momentum
The latest statistics show that nearly 50,000 new homes were built in the first three months of 2021, the highest figure in over 20 years. But since then, the construction industry has been hit by a variety of challenges that have caused projects to suffer from delays and unanticipated costs. As a result, methods such as offsite manufacturing are gaining popularity due to their positive impact on productivity, and the speed at which homes, hospitals, and schools are being constructed.
In 2021, Savills predicted that the proportion of new housing developments built using MMC would need to increase from the current 6-10% to 20% of the market in the coming years in order to meet the Government’s target of building 300,000 homes each year by 2025.
The future lies in modular construction
As modular building becomes increasingly advanced, it is clear that offsite construction now offers enhanced productivity, quality control, and return on investment which will help us to create an integrated way of working that has the potential to transform the sector.
The chronic need for new homes combined with the growing pressure on the sector to cut carbon emissions and tackle sector-wide shortages means that modular construction must now be seriously considered by housebuilders, both large and small.
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