Commercial building activity (including offices, retail buildings and industrial premises) is poised for continued moderate growth over the next two years in line with rising private and public sector investment. The total value of commercial work is expected to increase by 8.7% in 2018-19 and 6.3% in 2019-20 following an 8.2% increase in 2017-18.

Reflecting project completions and falling investor demand, revenue from multi-level apartment building work is expected to decline by 4.8% in 2018-19 followed by a sharp contraction of 17.6% in 2019-20.

Commercial building has been something of a star performer over the last couple of years and has recently touched record highs. Master Builders Australia anticipate that activity here will break another new high during 2019/20 before reverting to levels more consistent with previous norms. By 2023/24, they project that commercial building activity will have fallen by 9% compared with 2018/19. Office and accommodation building are expected to see the most pain over the next few years while retail, health and transport buildings will buck the trend and return decent gains.