R&D Tax Relief in the Construction Industry

The Construction industry is predicted to be worth 236.8 billion between 2020 and 2024. Therefore, it is a massive aspect of R&D.

The construction sector can be broken down into a few different categories – these include, private sector housing, infrastructure, industrial and commercial, public sector housing and more.

From these categories, there are then endless specialist companies such as builders, fitters, trades, engineers, manufacturers and other suppliers.

So... what is R&D?

Research and Development is all about uncertainty; if you conduct the process of either ‘researching’ and/or ‘developing’, you could be eligible for a claim.

The average value of a claim in this sector was over £48,000 – yet many businesses are still unaware of this scheme!

Just 5% of eligible limited companies submit R&D claims, resulting in billions of pounds of tax relief unclaimed every year.

What makes me eligible?

Although awareness of the R&D scheme has increased, there is still lots of misunderstanding surrounding it. Most companies believe that it can only be claimed by people who do science in a laboratory. HMRC don’t make it very clear as to what can be claimed and how. This is so that the scheme can be relevant to any industry and not strictly ones which are lab based. There are lots of different ways that qualifying activities can be undertaken by the construction sector – this could be during both the design and prototyping processes while projects are being implemented on site.

What should you ensure before claiming?

Must be a limited company in the UK, subject to corporation tax
Must have carried out research and development into new products or processes
Must have spent money on the above projects

What are examples of claimable projects within construction?

Examples of R&D within the Construction sector

Investigating and using new materials
Adapting and finding new purposes for existing traditional materials
Researching energy-saving techniques
Overcoming traditional challenges in new ways
Creating efficient construction techniques
Developing safer methods and practices
Researching and developing new tools

Did you know?

Since the introduction of the legislation in 2002 more than £27bn has been claimed from HMRC
Even where a company is loss making, the legislation is designed to ensure that companies can still receive cash back when conducting qualifying R&D work
There’s no minimum (or maximum) amount that a company needs to have spent on doing research and development work in order to make a claim for R&D tax relief.

Check out our R&D tax calculator

Work out how much your claim could be worth with our easy to use R&D tax credits calculator. Remember we can claim up to two years so make sure you don’t miss out on your innovation fund.

Want to know more? Contact our team today and see how much your claim could be worth!