Industry must prepare for future opportunities while navigating another difficult year of trading.
The sold-out event on 4 November brought together 180 delegates from across the UK, Europe and Brazil to examine the challenges facing the timber supply chain, from weak construction demand and rising production costs to global trade disruption and changing regulatory requirements.
While the outlook for 2027 remains challenging, a recurring message throughout the conference was the need for businesses to look beyond current market conditions, identify opportunities for growth and prepare for the eventual recovery in construction activity. Speakers warned that the industry could face a very different set of challenges when demand returns, with tightening timber supplies, reduced sawmilling capacity and continuing skills shortages potentially restricting its ability to respond.
Opening the conference, TDUK Chief Executive David Hopkins acknowledged the pressures facing members, highlighting the impact of geopolitical instability, tariffs, energy costs and weak UK construction activity.
He outlined how TDUK has responded by increasing the technical support and training programmes available to members. Despite the difficult market conditions, TDUK has continued to grow its professional audience, with more than 160,000 registered website users, including 30,000 construction professionals from 12,000 organisations. More than 5,000 people have registered for and participated in TDUK events during 2026, while 3,000 people have registered for Wood Campus training since the platform launched.
Looking ahead to 2027, Hopkins announced plans to expand regional training and educational events, and continue expanding its Wood Campus learning platform through the development of Level 3 of the Essentials of Timber Supply programme. Regulatory engagement will remain a priority, particularly around the Building Safety Act, construction products regulation, EUDR and proposed restrictions affecting timber construction.
David stressed that connecting the supply chain and improving the wider construction industry's understanding of timber products would be central to increasing specification and creating new opportunities for members.
European timber supply faces structural challenges
Sampsa Auvinen, Chair of Fordaq and CEI-Bois, examined the European softwood market, warning that the current weak demand may be concealing longer-term problems with timber availability and production capacity.
European softwood consumption has fallen from approximately 85 million m³ in 2021 to 71 million m³, leaving sawmills competing for fewer customers while facing exceptionally high raw material costs. Auvinen reported that an estimated nine out of 10 Swedish sawmills are operating with negative margins, with production reductions and closures taking place across Europe.
But Auvinen said the longer-term concern is not simply excess production capacity. Shortages of suitable logs, particularly Spruce, are becoming increasingly significant, driven by factors including bark beetle damage, harvesting restrictions and changing forest conditions. He warned that when construction demand eventually recovers, the loss of sawmilling capacity and constraints on raw material availability could create supply shortages and substantial price increases.
Germany was identified as a particularly important market to watch, with building permits rising by approximately 15% during the first half of 2026. Canadian producers could also become more significant suppliers to Europe as they seek alternatives to the US market.
For UK timber importers and merchants, the message was clear: current weak demand should not be mistaken for long-term security of supply.
Finding opportunities in a flat market
The conference then turned to the practical steps timber businesses can take to generate growth, with a panel discussion chaired by David Hopkins featuring Michelle Buckland, Managing Director of Timber at Haldane Fisher Group, and James Davenport, Managing Director of Metsä Wood UK.
Buckland encouraged the industry to spend less time competing against itself on price and focus instead on winning market share from competing construction materials, including steel, brick and concrete. She argued that timber's environmental credentials provide a strong commercial advantage, but that businesses need to communicate its benefits more effectively and place greater value on their products.
Davenport agreed that controlling costs was necessary in the current market, but stressed that businesses cannot achieve growth through cost reductions alone. He outlined Metsä Wood's own focus on understanding customer requirements, developing products that deliver measurable benefits and exploring new markets.
Both speakers acknowledged that customers are purchasing more cautiously, often buying only what they need for immediate projects rather than building stock speculatively.
The discussion also identified the opportunities that exist in engineered timber, particularly in non-residential construction, and the growing investment by major housebuilders in their own timber-frame manufacturing facilities.
Construction recovery unlikely before late 2027
Closing the conference, Professor Noble Francis, Economics Director at the Construction Products Association, presented a challenging forecast for UK construction, with little prospect of significant improvement during the first half of 2027. The CPA expects private housebuilding output to fall by 10% in 2026 and a further 3% in 2027, while private housing repair, maintenance and improvement is forecast to decline by 8% this year.
Francis highlighted weak consumer confidence, higher mortgage rates, rising energy costs and increasing development costs as major obstacles to recovery. Construction product prices are now 52% higher than they were in January 2020, while the cumulative impact of regulatory and employment costs is placing further pressure on housebuilding viability. Although public housing output is forecast to grow by 2% in 2027, government investment programmes will take time to translate into activity on site.
Looking further ahead, Francis identified construction skills shortages as a major concern, with employment approximately 300,000 workers below 2019 levels. He highlighted the potential for increased timber-frame construction to help address labour constraints, while questioning whether timber supply and manufacturing capacity would be sufficient to support wider adoption.
Preparing for the recovery
Across all four conference sessions, the speakers highlighted the difficult balance facing the timber industry: managing costs and weak demand today while still investing in the products, skills, relationships and capacity needed for tomorrow.
Although the speakers offered little expectation of a rapid recovery, they identified opportunities through product innovation, greater use of engineered timber, improved supply-chain collaboration and increased timber specification.
With potential supply constraints emerging across Europe and construction demand expected to improve only gradually, the message from the conference was that businesses cannot simply wait for timber market conditions to change. Instead, they must prepare now for the challenges and opportunities ahead – and how successful they are will be central to the industry's future growth.
