Scottish construction companies are bucking a trend of decreasing demand for their services seen in other parts of the UK, according to recent research.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) reports that the workloads of construction businesses operating in Scotland have been growing rapidly in each of the past eight quarters.

Rics cites falling demand for properties and the impact of the so-called credit crunch as reasons why construction workloads in the UK as a whole "eased back" over the course of the final quarter of 2007.

A statement from Rics' latest construction market survey read: "Scotland continues to be the stand-out performer, racking up an eighth consecutive quarter of rapid growth.

"Scottish workload growth remained robust. All sectors are seeing strong growth, with private housing leading."

An agreement reached between the Scottish Building Standards Agency and Rics Scotland recently means that surveyors north of the border are now in a position to provide energy certificates on properties they deal with.