(Alliance News) - The UK's construction activity rose at its fastest pace in two years in May, survey results from S&P Global showed Thursday.

The headline S&P Global UK construction purchasing managers' index rose to 54.7 points in May from 53.0 in April, outperforming FXStreet-cited market expectations of a fall back to 52.5 points.

May's PMI score represented the fastest pace of expansion in the UK construction sector in two years. Climbing further above the 50-point mark separating growth from contraction, it indicates the pace of growth accelerated.

"Supply-chain conditions continued to improve amid reports of good stock availability at vendors. This contributed to the pace of input cost inflation slowing to a marginal pace," S&P Global said.

Andrew Harker, economist director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said: "Particularly pleasing was the broad-based nature of the rise in activity as work on housing projects increased for the first time in more than a year-and-a-half. Firms are gearing up for further growth in the months ahead, posting renewed expansions in both employment and purchasing activity as workloads increase."

He added: "Moreover, the supply-chain environment continued to improve in May. Companies were able to secure inputs much more quickly than in April and at prices that were only slightly higher than in the previous month on average. These factors should help constructors in their efforts to ramp up operations in line with greater new order inflows."

Further, S&P Global noted an increase in purchasing activity in May, linked to improving workloads.

"With supply-chain conditions improving, companies noted only a marginal increase in input costs during May, with the rate of inflation the softest in the current five-month sequence of rising input prices," S&P Global said.

The construction PMI is compiled by S&P Global from responses to questionnaires sent to a panel of around 150 construction companies in the UK. Responses were collected between May 9 and 30.

By Tom Budszus, Alliance News slot editor

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