Public spending on schools and hospitals is propping up the construction sector, driving up overall workloads to their highest level since last summer, says a report to be released today.

Spending on building schools and hospitals is increasing at the fastest rate since 2007, with 5% more surveyors estimating that their workloads are rising than those who say it is decreasing, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

In the three months to the end of June, public and private housebuilding put in the best performance since the first quarter of 2008, although a net 11-24% of surveyors thought workloads were still decreasing.

Expectations for future work across the industry also rose to their highest levels since the first quarter of last year, with a net 8 per cent predicting a further decline. During the previous three quarters, the pessimists had outnumbered the optimists by an average of 42%.

Financial Times