The UK’s official construction forecast for 2026 was just slashed from plus 1.7 per cent growth to a 2.5 per cent decline. Same week, Caterpillar reported 63 billion dollars worth of equipment already on order, up 79 per cent in twelve months.
In this week’s Executive Weekly Briefing, Owen walks through what the macro really says about your business, what the latest results from Caterpillar, Trimble, Bentley and Procore actually mean once you strip the jargon out, and the question every contractor needs to answer this week: where are you sitting on the line between the half of the industry that is shrinking and the half that is booming?
Plus five fast takes from this week on Bricks and Bytes, including why banks are adopting AI faster than construction, what Nemetschek’s 2.4 billion dollar HCSS deal really signals, and Palantir’s quiet push into the construction industry.
And for Construction Safety Week, the three numbers every executive needs to hear, the news that Turner Construction has just made its AI safety tool free to the entire industry, and a tease of the Bricks and Bytes Safety Tech Report dropping shortly.
Episodes referenced this week
- Yves Padrines, CEO Nemetschek + Usman Shuja, CEO Bluebeam: the HCSS acquisition
- Chase Gilbert, CEO + Chris DeVito, Built Technologies: the AI documentation bottleneck
- Mallory Brodie, CEO Bridgit: the workforce benchmark report
- Brett Adams + Dan Julien, Forgesight: Palantir Foundry in construction (Coming soon)
Key resources
- CPA Spring 2026 Forecast
- RICS UK Construction Monitor, Q1 2026
- Q1 2026 earnings releases: Caterpillar, Trimble, Bentley, Procore
- Turner Construction SafeT Coach announcement
- BLS 2024 construction fatality data
