Around 500 million unsold bricks are sitting in yards and depots across the UK, enough to build about 50,000 homes, according to the GMB union, which has warned that thousands of jobs could be at risk as housebuilding remains below government targets.
The union said the stockpile is spread across depots around the country and represents enough bricks to build the equivalent of two towns the size of Kidderminster.
The warning comes as Wienerberger, described by GMB as the UK’s largest brick manufacturer, prepares to close its Hartlebury plant in the West Midlands.
Brickworkers are due to address the Trades Union Congress in Brighton on Monday, where they are expected to warn that more jobs could be lost unless the government takes action to increase housebuilding.
The TUC’s 158th Congress is being held at the Brighton Centre from September 13 to 16.
The government pledged two years ago to deliver 1.5 million new homes by the end of the decade. GMB said current projections indicate that the target is likely to be missed by hundreds of thousands of homes.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said in December that Housing Secretary Steve Reed had pledged to take further action to meet the target, alongside what the department described as the most comprehensive overhaul of planning rules in more than a decade.
The union’s concerns come amid weak activity across the construction sector. UK construction activity fell sharply in July 2025, when the purchasing managers’ index dropped to 44.3, its lowest level since the first Covid-19 lockdown. Housebuilding was the weakest-performing category.
The industry is also facing a shortage of skilled workers. Research by City & Guilds published in 2025 found that 76% of construction businesses were struggling to recruit staff. The Construction Industry Training Board has estimated that the sector needs an additional 239,300 workers by 2029.
GMB member and brickworker Lewis Parmenter told TUC delegates that 500 million bricks were currently unused in factory yards across the country.
“That is enough to build 50,000 average-sized houses, or ten small towns,” he said, adding that the stock could provide homes for hundreds of thousands of people.
Parmenter warned that the failure to build enough homes was threatening the future of the brick industry.
“Without spades in the ground to build the homes we need, our industry will collapse and eight thousand jobs will go: including mine,” he said.
He said his factory had experienced six shutdowns over three years and another plant had been mothballed.
Parmenter also said brickmakers Ibstock and Forterra were already making redundancies, raising concerns that further job losses could follow.
He called for an industrial strategy focused on housing, arguing that manufacturers cannot continue producing bricks if existing stocks are not being sold.
The GMB said the situation demonstrated the connection between housing construction and manufacturing employment, warning that prolonged weakness in housebuilding could affect communities dependent on the industry.
