Last updated: October 2026. Human compiled and fact checked against each named source on 7 September 2026.
Irish construction costs turned upward again in 2026. The SCSI’s August index recorded the largest six-monthly rise in tender prices in three and a half years, CSO wholesale prices for building materials are 3.3% higher than a year ago, and construction earnings are rising faster than the all-sector average. This page gathers the current Irish figures on tender prices, material costs, construction wages, rebuild costs and the grants that offset them, each linked to its primary source. It is part of a series with our home renovation and extension statistics, attic conversion statistics and home energy and retrofit statistics.
Key Building and Renovation Cost Statistics for Ireland at a Glance
- Commercial tender prices rose 3% nationally in the first half of 2026, the largest six-monthly increase in three and a half years, and 4% over twelve months. Source: SCSI, Tender Price Index, 25 August 2026
- That trebled the pace of late 2025: tender prices rose just 2.5% across the whole of 2025, the lowest annual increase since 2020. Source: SCSI, Tender Price Index, February 2026
- 84% of surveyed chartered quantity surveyors view the market as rising or at peak, citing the Middle East conflict, with copper up 8.7% and pipes and fittings up 7.9%. Source: SCSI, August 2026
- Wholesale prices for building and construction materials stood at 131.1 in July 2026 (2021 = 100), up 3.3% in a year and 39.9% above January 2021 (calculated). Source: CSO, Wholesale Price Index, table WPM39
- Paints, oils and varnishes rose 9.2% in the year to July 2026, ready mixed mortar and concrete 7.5% and stone, sand and gravel 4.7%, while cement fell 5.3%. Source: CSO, table WPM39
- Average weekly earnings in construction reached €1,089.21 in Quarter 2 2026, up 4.3% in a year (calculated) and 30.6% in five years (calculated), and now sit above the all-sector average of €1,046.88. Source: CSO, Earnings and Labour Costs, table EHQ03
- 188,600 people worked in construction in Quarter 2 2026, up 45.4% on the 129,700 of Quarter 2 2021 (calculated) but marginally below a year earlier. Source: CSO, Labour Force Survey, table QLF03
- The minimum base cost of rebuilding a 98 square metre three bed semi in Dublin is €331,340, or €3,381 per square metre, after a 7% national rise in rebuilding costs. Source: SCSI, House Rebuilding Cost Guide, November 2025
- Grants offset a meaningful share of project cost: up to €50,000 for refurbishing a vacant property (€70,000 if derelict), up to €14,500 for a heat pump (including a €2,000 boiler scrappage grant) and up to €8,000 for wall insulation. Sources: gov.ie and SEAI
- The prices apply to a large market: planning permission was granted for 8,232 extensions in 2025 averaging about 66 square metres each (calculated), alongside 36,284 new dwelling completions. Sources: CSO, tables BHQ13 and BHQ14, and CSO, New Dwelling Completions Q4 2025
Tender Prices: the 2026 Reacceleration
The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland’s Tender Price Index is the benchmark for what contractors are actually pricing. Its August 2026 release, published on 25 August, recorded a 3% national increase in commercial tender prices in the first half of 2026, the largest six-monthly rise in three and a half years, bringing the twelve month rate to 4%. Munster led at 3.3%, followed by Connacht and Ulster at 3%, Dublin at 2.5% and the rest of Leinster at 2.3%. SCSI President Tomás Kelly said the majority of surveyed quantity surveyors pointed to the Middle East conflict as a major driver of material price changes, with copper up 8.7%, pipes and fittings up 7.9% and PVC pipes up 5.4%, alongside skilled labour shortages and Sectoral Employment Order wage increases. 84% of respondents view the market as rising or at peak.
The turn is sharp because 2025 had been calm: the February 2026 release put full year 2025 tender inflation at 2.5%, the lowest annual increase since 2020, with Dublin and Leinster flat in the second half. In the first half of 2025 the national rise was 1.5%, per the August 2025 release, so the index has doubled its pace within a year.
| Region | H1 2025 | H1 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| National | +1.5% | +3.0% |
| Dublin | +1.0% | +2.5% |
| Rest of Leinster | +0.5% | +2.3% |
| Munster | +2.0% | +3.3% |
| Connacht and Ulster | +2.0% | +3.0% |
Sources for the table: SCSI Tender Price Index, August 2025 and August 2026, six-monthly commercial tender inflation. The index tracks commercial projects, but the same contractors, trades and materials price residential work, so a homeowner comparing quotes gathered six months apart in 2026 should expect the later ones to be measurably higher.
Materials: Where Prices Stand in 2026
The CSO’s Wholesale Price Index for building and construction materials, from table WPM39 (July 2026 data, released 21 August 2026), stood at 131.1 against a 2021 base of 100, which is 3.3% higher than July 2025 and 39.9% above the 93.7 recorded in January 2021 (calculated). The shape of the last five years is a steep climb followed by a long plateau: the index stood at 107.2 in December 2021, 123.9 in December 2022, 125.0 in December 2023, 126.3 in December 2024 and 127.4 in December 2025, all from the same table. Almost the entire increase happened in 2021 and 2022, and none of it has reversed; 2026 has added a modest fresh rise on top. Within the index the pressure is uneven.
| Material group | Change in the 12 months to July 2026 |
|---|---|
| Paints, oils and varnishes | +9.2% |
| Ready mixed mortar and concrete | +7.5% |
| Stone, sand and gravel | +4.7% |
| Concrete blocks and bricks | +4.5% |
| Glass | +4.0% |
| Rough timber | +3.2% |
| Insulating materials | +2.8% |
| Wooden windows and doors | +2.7% |
| Structural steel | +1.6% |
| Electrical fittings | -1.3% |
| Plumbing materials | -1.6% |
| HVAC (heating and ventilation equipment) | -2.4% |
| Cement | -5.3% |
Source for the table: CSO, Wholesale Price Index, table WPM39, percentage change over 12 months, July 2026. The heavy, quarried and concrete based materials are rising while mechanical, electrical and heating equipment is flat to cheaper, which shifts the cost balance of a project towards its structural stages.
Labour: Wages Above the National Average
Labour is the other half of every quote. Average weekly earnings in construction reached €1,089.21 in Quarter 2 2026, from the CSO’s Earnings and Labour Costs table EHQ03 (released 25 August 2026). That is 4.3% higher than the €1,044.48 of a year earlier and 30.6% higher than the €834.24 of Quarter 2 2021 (both calculated), and it puts construction above the all-sector average of €1,046.88. Average hourly earnings in the sector are €29.88, which prices a two-person crew’s basic eight hour day above €475 before employer costs (calculated as an illustration).
The trend has been one direction for years, with the pace picking up after 2023.
| Quarter | Average weekly earnings, construction |
|---|---|
| Q4 2019 | €841.01 |
| Q4 2021 | €916.08 |
| Q4 2023 | €947.70 |
| Q4 2025 | €1,018.27 |
| Q2 2026 | €1,089.21 |
Source for the table: CSO, table EHQ03, average weekly earnings, construction (NACE F), all employees.
The workforce behind those wages has grown but is no longer growing: 188,600 people worked in construction in Quarter 2 2026 per the Labour Force Survey, table QLF03, up 45.4% on the 129,700 of Quarter 2 2021 (calculated) but slightly below the 190,300 of Quarter 2 2025. A workforce that has stopped expanding while output targets rise is the labour shortage the SCSI’s surveyors describe, and it is why wage growth feeds through to tender prices.
Rebuild Costs: the Insurance Benchmark
Dublin is the most expensive region in the country to build in, and its extensions are the smallest, averaging about 46 square metres against 66 nationally. Our Dublin home renovation and extension statistics page covers the capital in detail.
The SCSI’s House Rebuilding Cost Guide, published 4 November 2025, put the national rise in house rebuilding costs at 7% in twelve months. Dublin rose 5% to €3,381 per square metre, making the minimum base rebuild cost of a typical 98 square metre three bed semi €331,340, against €2,756 per square metre and €270,090 in the North West, the lowest regional rate. The SCSI attributed the increases to labour costs and availability, competition from other construction work, and the Landfill Levy (September 2024) and Recovery Levy (January 2025). Rebuild costs are an insurance benchmark rather than a renovation quote, but they remain the best published regional indicator of finished construction cost per square metre, and the next edition is due in November 2026.
What Grants Give Back
The biggest grant in the list exists because of empty homes: Ireland has between 70,149 and 163,433 vacant dwellings depending on the measure, and a third of the BER matched ones are rated F or G. Our housing stock and vacancy statistics for Ireland maps that opportunity.
Public money offsets a meaningful share of renovation cost. The Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant is worth up to €50,000 for a qualifying vacant property and up to €70,000 where the property is derelict, per gov.ie, and €348.6 million had been paid on 6,312 completed refurbishments by July 2026, per the Department of Housing. SEAI individual grants reach €14,500 for a heat pump (including a €2,000 boiler scrappage grant introduced on 6 October 2026), €8,000 for wall insulation and €4,000 for windows, per the SEAI grants page, and Housing Adaptation Grants reach €40,000 for adapting a home for a disabled person, per the Department of Housing, March 2026. Against a Dublin rebuild benchmark of €3,381 per square metre, the maximum vacant property grant covers the equivalent of roughly 15 square metres of finished construction (calculated as an illustration).
The throughput of these schemes shows how much renovation work they now fund. €52.6 million in vacant property grants was paid out in Quarter 2 2026 alone, bringing 923 homes back into use; 15,700 housing adaptation grant claims were processed in 2025 with around 17,000 funded for 2026 on over €152 million; and SEAI backed over 58,000 home energy upgrades in 2025 within a record €645 million investment. Sources: Department of Housing, July 2026, Department of Housing, March 2026 and SEAI, January 2026.
One fast growing slice of that work is accessibility: plumbing materials including sanitary ware are 30.5% above their January 2021 level while adaptation grant ceilings stay fixed in cash terms. Our bathroom and accessibility renovation statistics for Ireland covers both sides.
The Work Being Priced
These costs meet a market that keeps growing. Planning permission was granted for 8,232 extensions in 2025, 7,193 of them to dwellings averaging about 66 square metres each, and 4,138 permissions for alterations and conversions to dwellings, all calculated from CSO tables BHQ13 and BHQ14. New building added 36,284 dwellings in 2025, the most since the series began, per the CSO New Dwelling Completions release, although the pace eased to 8,823 completions in Quarter 2 2026, down 3.6% year on year, per the Quarter 2 2026 release. Demand competing for the same trades and materials is exactly the condition the SCSI’s surveyors describe when they report a rising market. The volume side of the market is covered in our home renovation and extension statistics, the roof conversion segment in our attic conversion statistics, and the energy side in our home energy and retrofit statistics.
Method and Sources
Every figure was taken from the named primary source on 7 September 2026: the SCSI Tender Price Index releases of 25 August 2026, February 2026 and August 2025; the SCSI House Rebuilding Cost Guide press release of 4 November 2025; CSO Wholesale Price Index table WPM39 (July 2026 data, released 21 August 2026); CSO Earnings and Labour Costs table EHQ03 (Quarter 2 2026, released 25 August 2026); CSO Labour Force Survey table QLF03 (Quarter 2 2026); CSO Planning Permissions tables BHQ13 and BHQ14 and the New Dwelling Completions release for Quarter 4 2025; the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant scheme page and Department of Housing statements of 17 July and 9 March 2026; and the SEAI individual grants page. Figures marked calculated were derived by OS Holding from the cited tables (index changes against January 2021, year on year and five year earnings changes, employment changes, averages per permission, and the grant to rebuild cost illustration). The page will be refreshed monthly with each WPM39 update and after each SCSI index (next tender release February 2027, next rebuild guide November 2026) and each quarterly CSO earnings release.
How OS Holding Helps
OS Holding prices and builds house renovations, kitchen renovations and extensions across Dublin with written, itemised quotes, so you can see exactly where materials and labour costs land in your project. For a current price on your own job, request a quote or contact the team. Journalists and researchers are welcome to quote any figure here with a link to the source and to this page.
