British importers took 60.7 per cent less cross-laminated timber in the first half of 2026, with all engineered wood down 13 per cent. That is according to Timber Development UK, which published its September statistics on Monday covering the main timber and panel products Britain consumes.
“The first half of 2026 presents a mixed picture for UK timber imports, but the headline position is that overall volumes remain weak,” Nick Boulton said, with Timber Development UK’s head of technical and trade policy counting softwood almost 5 per cent down on the half.
Glulam fell 17 per cent over the half, while laminated veneer lumber was the only engineered product to grow, rising 8.5 per cent. I-beam volumes finished at last year’s level, though Poland now supplies 95 per cent of them, up from 89 per cent.
Cross-laminated timber came to 7,000 cubic metres over the half, with Austria supplying 86 per cent of it, up from 68. Timber Development UK counts Austrian volumes down 6,000 cubic metres, and Austria has taken the glulam lead from Germany. That decline began earlier, with demand halving in the second half of 2025 and holding at that level through the six months to June.
France fell from 9 per cent of British supply to 1 per cent, while Germany rose from 1 per cent to 8. Timber Development UK names Germany and Finland as the only two origins that supplied more cross-laminated timber by volume over the half.
It comes as softwood, which takes more than 60 per cent of timber and panel imports, fell 4.9 per cent to 2.898 million cubic metres. HM Revenue and Customs found February volumes from Finland and Ireland overstated, and the first-quarter figures have been amended downward since. Finland supplied 18 per cent less over the half once that revision ran through, and Germany sent 12 per cent less.
The Construction Products Association forecasts a 9 per cent fall in housing starts this year, which Timber Development UK offers as part of the explanation. Even so, Britain started 151,000 homes in 2025, 12 per cent above 2024, the worst year of the past decade. English starts then rose 18 per cent higher in the first quarter of 2026, on a 26 per cent rise in the private sector.
However, the sharpest fall of the main categories came in plywood, down 13.6 per cent to 627,000 cubic metres over the half. Brazil sent 60,000 cubic metres less softwood plywood, a 39 per cent fall that drove the category down 28.8 per cent.
Chinese suppliers cut hardwood plywood shipments by 48,000 cubic metres in the second quarter, a 23 per cent fall on a year earlier. Their share of Britain’s softwood plywood market rose from 8 per cent to 22 per cent over the same quarter, while Brazil’s fell from 64 per cent to 56 per cent. The average price of Chinese hardwood plywood fell 8 per cent, and Britain’s overall hardwood plywood price spiked to £436 a cubic metre in June.
Nonetheless, MDF was the strongest of the main categories over the half, rising 13.1 per cent to 416,000 cubic metres. Timber Development UK counts Chinese volumes doubled in the first half of 2025, with MDF import values up 9.9 per cent to £188 million. Particleboard added 4.6 per cent on much higher volumes from Luxembourg, and OSB rose 2.3 per cent to 236,000 cubic metres.
British softwood exports rose 24 per cent over the six months to 157,000 cubic metres, with Ireland taking 93 per cent. MDF exports rose 46 per cent over the same half, reversing four straight years of decline in the smallest of Britain’s panel exports.
Particleboard exports edged 1.4 per cent higher, while OSB fell short of last year before a second quarter 21 per cent above 2025. Boulton called British exports “tiny in comparison with the volumes of timber and panels imported into the UK”, though a valuable proportion of domestic output.
