2021 Interim Contractors Risk Review

The construction industry is continuing to face some of its biggest challenges in decades, with new opportunities – and threats - emerging.

To stay informed read our Interim Contractors Risk Review 2021. This is an update of some of the key risks affecting the industry since we issued our Contractor Risk Review in September 2020, and which have come to particular prominence since.

Specifically, we considered the following risk areas and have provided a definition and quantification of risk together with an analysis of mitigation measures:

Current Economic Conditions. Brexit developments and the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) landscape both have the potential to affect UK construction companies and European contractors working in the UK. Following Brexit, new controls and procedures have placed pressure on the supply of labour and raw materials, whilst the accumulation of cash reserves amongst a significant proportion of contractors during 2020, indicates a coming wave of M&A activity which could leave companies open to a variety of threats.
Cyber Risks. As technology and connectivity increase throughout the construction industry, a shortfall in cyber security capability, highlighted in a number of disruptive and costly cyber attacks in 2020, has made contractors vulnerable to exploitation by cyber-crime gangs, hostile state actors, terrorists and others.

As with most other industry sectors globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has been near the top of everyone’s list of concerns. However, due to the fact that the situation is ongoing, with full implications still to be realised, this will be fully addressed in our annual Contractor Risk Review 2021 which will released later in the year.