In the UK brick may be gold standard, but basic level would be block work with render or brick facing. Really it's just what builders are used to, and the skill

In the UK brick may be gold standard, but basic level would be block work with render or brick facing. Really it's just what builders are used to, and the skills that are available. Bear in mind too that there are a lot of old houses here (by which I mean over 100 years old) and they're not just the high-end ones. There are lots of shoddily-built victorian terraces with single skin brickwork and no foundations, but survivor bias means that somehow they're still standing, even if it is a bit scary when you realise how many are built directly onto bare earth with bricks that fall apart and old mines underneath. They've survived the Luftwaffe and 150 years or so of subsidence, so they're probably fine for another 100 more. Timber framing is just not the standard, so there are more brickies. The cost isn't that different, otherwise the crappy estates would be built in timber rather than blocks. Likewise plasterboard is skimmed rather than taped, because that's how it's always done and that's what the plasterers are used to, even if the work is more skilled. If the UK does move away from blockwork I'd imagine that as building regs change and the cost trade-offs move it'll switch more to SIPs rather than ever to timber framing.