Construction workloads in Scotland have risen by a third, according to a recent survey.

The latest RICS UK Construction Market Survey found 33% more respondents reported higher activity levels in the second quarter of 2015, twice the rating of the first quarter.

The survey also revealed almost three quarters of firms expect to see workloads rise on average by 3.8%, while a net balance of 45% of respondents in Scotland reported higher workloads in private housing.

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The pace of growth in Northern Ireland was more modest.

Overall, 73% more Scottish surveyors said they expected to see their workloads increase.

Rics Scotland director Sarah Speirs said: "The upturn in workloads has led to more competitive tendering, particularly across public sector projects, but a lack of accessible finance is now affecting many of our members and while concern over labour shortages dipped slightly, the demand for cost and project management skills rose.

"Also typical as workloads recover is the emergence of other impediments to growth - outside of labour and finance constraints - such as planning and regulatory barriers, which could be exacerbated if cuts are made to local authority planning departments as backlogs in planning applications could have a knock-on effect to work pipelines."

(LM)