The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency has published the Northern Ireland Composite Economic Index for the first quarter of 2026.

Alongside this, NISRA released separate construction output figures for the same period, showing that housing activity drove high levels of construction output from January to March.

Housing construction, which covers both new build and repair and maintenance, grew by 7.6 percent compared with the previous quarter and by 27.4 percent compared with the same period a year earlier. The subsector reached a 15-year high in the first quarter of 2026, continuing an upward trend that began in late 2023.

The total volume of construction output in Northern Ireland edged down by 1.0 percent from the record level recorded in the final quarter of 2025, marking the first decline after three consecutive quarters of growth. Despite this slight fall, output remained 23.0 percent above the pre-pandemic level seen in the fourth quarter of 2019 and 81.5 percent above the pandemic low point in the second quarter of 2020.

All three construction subsectors posted growth compared with the first quarter of 2025. Housing rose by 27.4 percent, infrastructure increased by 3.9 percent and other work grew by 0.7 percent. New work volumes over the year increased by 18.6 percent, while repair and maintenance activity fell by 2.5 percent.

The statistics are drawn from the Quarterly Construction Enquiry, part of the Quarterly Business Survey, and are published as seasonally adjusted volume measures. They exclude work carried out by Northern Ireland construction firms in other parts of the UK.