Listed housebuilders have now warned on profits 14 times during 2026, six of those in the third quarter alone. That is already above the 10 they issued in 2008, the worst year of the financial crisis, according to the EY-Parthenon analysis reported by the Guardian.
The wider count is a tally of companies, not of lost earnings. It tells you how many boards felt obliged to correct their own guidance, and how often they named the same two causes.
Key numbers
- 65 profit warnings from London-listed companies in the July-to-September quarter, the highest count in two years
- 14 warnings from listed housebuilders so far in 2026, against 10 in the whole of 2008
- 17% of UK-listed businesses have issued at least one warning in the past 12 months
- 5.55% average two-year fixed mortgage rate, up from 5.29% a month earlier and 4.25% before February
Costs and the conflict dominate the explanations
Across every warning in the quarter, the reason named most often as the main one was policy change and geopolitical uncertainty, with costs close behind. Costs were the leading factor in 35% of cases, while 38% referred directly to the conflict in the Middle East. The sector producing the most warnings between July and September was household goods and home construction.
Jo Robinson of EY-Parthenon said warnings tied to policy change and uncertainty, which used to cluster around elections and fiscal events, have become a standing feature of the data. Companies have been resilient, she said, but the speed of policy change is making forecasting, investment and capital allocation harder.
In plain words: a profit warning is a statement a listed company makes when its results are set to come in below the guidance it gave earlier. Each one concerns a single company's own books. A rising count across a market therefore shows how widely a cost problem has spread, rather than how much profit has gone.
The same squeeze shows up in housing
The property platform Rightmove said average asking prices for newly listed homes rose 1% in October to £371,015, while over the past 12 months prices are down 0.1%. Colleen Babcock of Rightmove said the speed of the increase in mortgage rates is starting to bite into buyers' budgets, and is now feeding into seller pricing in cheaper parts of Great Britain where prices had held up better this year.
The mortgage math is the clearest link between the war and household budgets. The average two-year fixed rate has gone from 4.25% before the United States and Israel attacked Iran in February to 5.55% now, which adds roughly £250 a month to payments on a new loan. Figures published last week by the Trades Union Congress put the extra cost of mortgages, loans, energy and water bills at nearly £14,000 per household over five years. The TUC asked the chancellor for a cost-of-living package paid for by higher taxes on wealth and on banking.
The budget lands in under a fortnight
Chancellor John Healey has promised that his 28 October statement to the Commons will give households and businesses "breathing space", while also saying the government has little room to act because the conflict has pushed borrowing costs to their highest in decades.
The Sunday Times reported that Healey is preparing to lift the threshold at which small firms begin paying business rates from £12,000 to £18,000, a change aimed at shops, cafes, pubs and hairdressers. It would deliver a promise made by Andy Burnham during his Makerfield byelection campaign. A first-time buyer scheme he also pledged is expected in the same budget. None of the reports I read gives a cost for either measure.
What to watch
- 28 October the chancellor's budget, including the reported business rates threshold change and the first-time buyer scheme