Transport projects dominate UK government construction pipeline

According to an analysis of the government's construction pipeline by KPMG, transport projects dominate construction spend at £66.2bn, accounting for half of the total pipeline value.

The report, 'UK Government Construction Pipeline - KPMG Analysis' looks at the £116bn forecast spend by central and local government across 1,886 projects in three spend periods: 2014-2016, 2016-2020, and beyond 2020.

Energy projects were the second largest category by value at £14.8bn, with almost 13% of the total pipeline value.

The highest numbers of projects were in the defence, justice and police sectors making up 70% of the pipeline by number, but contribute to only 7% of total pipeline value.

Forty per cent of the projects are stated as due to complete before 2016, but these projects represent only 7% of the total allocated pipeline value. Just under a fifth are due to complete after 2016 whilst a third of projects currently have no specified completion date.

“Our analysis of the UK Government’s Construction Pipeline shows the huge dominance of rail and road schemes in the Government’s infrastructure spend. Nearly 60% of the total value forecast to be spent over the next 10 years and beyond is on schemes such as HS2 and the national road network," said Richard Threlfall, KPMG's UK head of infrastructure.

“The total number of schemes is over 1,800, but in practice most of those schemes are individually of small value. It is concerning that a third of the total projects currently have no specified completion date as industry confidence in the pipeline would be improved if there was certainty around timescales to get schemes delivered.

“We welcome the government’s initiative in developing the Construction Pipeline, but more needs to be done to increase the completeness and robustness of the data.

“We will be issuing analysis on future updates to the Pipeline and we hope that there will be improvements in the data set so it becomes a reliable planning tool against which the UK construction industry can plan and invest with confidence," Mr Threlfall said.