New timber import figures covering Q3 2025 reveal an ongoing mixed picture for the sector, with year-to-date volumes still trailing 2024 but showing some signs of improvement as the year progressed. The latest statistics from Timber Development UK (TDUK) confirm that total imports in the first nine months of 2025 reached 7.01 million m³ – some 2.1% below the 7.15 million m³ recorded in the same period of 2024. This gap has narrowed since the half-year point, however, when volumes were down by 2.9%. This slight uplift has been driven by a need to replenish stocks after the flurry of construction activity we saw in Q2. This resulted in a more positive third quarter for imports, when we saw higher volumes than in Q3 2024 across the softwood, hardwood, plywood, OSB and engineered wood product sectors. Overall imports for the quarter were only 0.2% lower than Q3 2024, with a marked drop in MDF imports preventing combined volumes from moving into year-on-year growth.