The steady outlook we hoped for hasn't arrived. Here's the honest picture.

The steady outlook we hoped for hasn’t arrived. Here’s the honest picture.

Every six months, we survey hundreds of manufacturers, merchants and contractors across the construction supply chain and ask them to tell us honestly where things stand. The result is our Supply Chain Sentiment Report, designed to give PfH members a reliable read on market conditions before those conditions start affecting your costs and your programmes.

At the end of 2025, there was genuine optimism that 2026 would finally be the calm year the sector had been waiting for. Construction was stabilising, new orders were up and suppliers were feeling quietly confident. That mood didn’t last long.

The war in Iran has shifted sentiment sharply, copper has hit record highs, a major kitchen manufacturer has gone into administration and price predictions have jumped significantly in just a few months. In our Q1 2026 survey, we went straight to manufacturers, merchants and contractors to find out what they’re seeing and feeling right now, before the dust has had a chance to settle.

What you’ll find inside this report:

• Why overall supplier confidence has dropped from 9.3 to 8.74 in a single quarter, and what’s driving that shift beyond the obvious geopolitical headlines.
• How price expectations have moved sharply upward, with manufacturers and merchants now forecasting 4.5% rises over just six months, up from 2.5% over twelve months in our last report, and why contractors are predicting even higher.
• What the collapse of Moores Furniture Group means for the kitchen supply chain, and the wider questions it raises about resilience among construction manufacturers navigating sustained cost pressures.
• The copper story in full. With prices rising from around £9,500 to over £13,000 per tonne in six months and the US adding copper to its critical minerals list, we explain what this means for the materials your organisation depends on.
• Why the gap between construction output and output prices is widening again, and what that imbalance signals about what will happen to costs when demand picks back up.
• Our advice on how to handle price rise requests that don’t stack up, which cost drivers are genuinely affected by current conditions and which ones aren’t, and how to have those conversations with your supply chain confidently.

See what the market is telling us

Download the Q1 2026 Supply Chain Sentiment Report and go into your next supplier conversation armed with the data, the context and the confidence to ask the right questions.