Industry Analysis & Industry Trends
Glass was first invented over 5,000 years ago. However, the art of glazing did not shift into a construction trade until after the invention of machines for the mass manufacture of flat glass in the early 20th century. The further development of float process technology by Britain's Pilkington Brothers in the 1950s paved the way for the proliferation of the application of glass in the residential, commercial, and institutional building markets. This has underpinned the expansion of the glazing services industry over recent decades.
Demand for glass and glazing services is heavily influenced by the investment trends in downstream building markets... purchase to read more
Industry Report - Industry Locations Chapter
The spread of the glazing contractors across the UK bears some correlation with the distribution of residential population and economic activity, but the industry has a concentration of establishments in the South East and East of England regions. These regions contain a substantial share of the nation's commercial and residential building activity, and also border the London region which is an important market for large scale commercial glazing developments, including lucrative curtain wall cladding on office buildings.
The South East region accounts for the largest proportion of industry establishments (17.0%), and the East of England region accounts for 12.6% of establishments, this greatly outweighs each region's share of UK population (13.7% and 9.3% respectively)... purchase to read more