Rainscreen Wall Cladding Fastest Growing Cladding Product

THE UK WALL cladding market has seen modest growth of 13% in total installed area between 2015 and 2019.

While the pandemic has had an effect on the market, rainscreen cladding has benefitted from increased retrofitting on offices and apartment blocks.

Rainscreen cladding systems have been a fast-growing product sector in recent years, estimated to have quadrupled in terms of area installed from 2013 levels.

The main area of application has been offices, although there has also been strong demand for use on residential towers.

ACM cladding ban

Demand is further boosted by the requirement to replace unsafe ACM cladding on hundreds of high-rise residential buildings in the wake of the Hackitt Review into the Grenfell Tower disaster.

With a ban on the use of ACM cladding this has led to an increased demand for products with the highest level of fire safety classifications such as stone, glass wool, concrete and fibre cement.

Following decline of around 13% for installed cladding area (million m²) in 2020, the market is forecast to return to growth in 2021. In subsequent years, annual increases of around 4-5% are forecast, to reach around 48 million m² by 2024.