The property and construction sector is falling behind most other industries in website performance, with no improvement in comparison to rankings from last year, according to new research from web experts, Zengenti.
Zengenti, creators of CMS, Contensis, rolled out its annual ‘Big Players, Slow Web Pages’ campaign, analysing all FTSE 100 and 250 homepages to determine which industries and organisations have the best online presence and which currently lag behind.
With an average performance score of 73, an average accessibility score of 85 and an average speed of 410 ms, the property and construction industry came in eleventh place out of a total of 17 industries.
While the property and construction industry saw no change in ranking, other industries saw a larger shift.
The utilities sector was crowned as the industry with the best overall website performance in 2023, climbing up 12 places from 2022’s ranking.
Meanwhile, last year’s winner, the media and publishing industry, fell 14 places to the bottom three in this year’s ranking.
To create the research, Zengenti’s team collated the performance, accessibility and speed scores for each FTSE 100 and 250 company before calculating and comparing averages for each sector.
A full list of findings can be found in the below league table.
| Sector / Industry | Average performance | Average accessibility score | Average homepage speed (ms) | Average homepage speed index | Score | Ranking |
| Utilities | 88.2 | 84.2 | 272 | 96 | 269 | 1 |
| Sports and entertainment | 80 | 89 | 77 | 99 | 268 | 2 |
| Food and beverage | 76.2 | 85.6 | 93 | 99 | 261 | 3 |
| Insurance | 84.1 | 88.4 | 60 | 99 | 257 | 4 |
| Software and IT | 76 | 82.7 | 143 | 98 | 257 | 5 |
| Chemicals, mining, oil and gas | 73.4 | 86 | 211 | 97 | 257 | 6 |
| Defence/Security | 89 | 66 | 17 | 100 | 255 | 7 |
| Manufacturing, engineering and logistics | 75.6 | 83.7 | 144 | 98 | 254 | 8 |
| Healthcare and life sciences | 71.8 | 86.2 | 154 | 174 | 249 | 9 |
| Finance | 69 | 84 | 325 | 95 | 248 | 10 |
| Property and construction | 73 | 84.5 | 410 | 94 | 247 | 11 |
| Services | 70.1 | 83.6 | 458 | 94 | 247 | 12 |
| Travel, hospitality and leisure | 69 | 74 | 31 | 100 | 243 | 13 |
| Retail and grocery | 61.1 | 83.4 | 384 | 95 | 239 | 14 |
| Media and publishing | 81 | 79.4 | 428 | 94 | 234 | 15 |
| Telecoms and technology | 60.7 | 77.5 | 287 | 96 | 234 | 16 |
| Mobility | 59.7 | 84.2 | 393 | 95 | 232 | 17 |
Morgan Sindall, a leading British Construction and Regeneration group, achieved the best results among its FTSE 100 and 250 counterparts in the sector, with an average performance score of 95, an average accessibility score of 97 and an average speed of 78ms.
The findings come at a time when the housing market is fluctuating, with news of increasing numbers of ‘ghost listings’ popping up on online platforms, containing almost no information whatsoever for online consumers viewing the content.
Richard Chivers, co-founder of Contensis and chief executive officer of Zengenti, commented:
“This research shows how important it is to pay attention to and maintain your business’ website performance. Last year, media and publishing topped the list, yet the industry has fallen a staggering 14 places to the bottom three in this year’s ranking.
“If your business’ website doesn’t load quickly or is inaccessible, you will inevitably lose engagement and sales and can risk damaging your reputation in the process. For FTSE 100 and 250 companies, the impact of this could be critical.
“Yet, getting things right is not just important for a business’s performance. At Zengenti, we’ve always been a big advocate for improving online accessibility. We work closely with the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) to ensure our clients’ sites meet and go beyond accessibility requirements.
“Unfortunately, as this research shows, many industries still have significant room for improvement here – with the travel, hospitality and leisure industries, in particular, falling short. With the DAC revealing that 90% of disabled users click away from a website rather than report accessibility issues in 2023, there is no excuse not to improve.
“As leaders in their sectors, FTSE 100 and 250 companies have a real opportunity to lead the conversation and ensure online accessibility becomes an integral part of website performance in every industry.”
To read more about the importance of online accessibility and view the top five FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 performers in each sector listed above, visit https://www.contensis.com/content/ftse-2023-report.