Assessing and Mitigating Building Defects in the UK Construction Industry: Trends, Causes, and Sustainable Solutions

Defects in new homes have become an issue of a significant concern, which highlights the need for an urgent review of quality control processes within the UK construction industry. Improving the industry's performance requires a thorough understanding of construction defect trends, causes, and viable solutions. Despite a broad range of research in this area, a detailed review of building defects in the UK construction industry, using bibliometric methods, is lacking. By analysing the current literature quantitatively and qualitatively, this study aims to fill the gap. Using Bibliometric analysis, the study analysed scholarly publications, identified research trends, and highlighted significant authors, journals, and countries using mathematical, statistical, and graphical methods. The study highlights the main causes as low-quality materials used to minimise costs, skilled labour shortages and fast-tracked construction timeframes resulting in substandard work, all of which could be addressed through enhanced quality control, advanced technology, thorough inspections and quality audits, stakeholder collaboration, and sustainable construction. The study established the need for further research into defect prevention frameworks, economic and environmental implications of building defects, and the need for application of emerging technologies (e.g., Building Information Modelling, Internet of Things) to defect mitigation. Comparative research across regions or countries may reveal best practices and creative ways to construction building defects management.