Construction

The UK has a major programme of infrastructure investment ahead. Across water, energy, transport and the wider built environment, clients need to improve productivity, safety and resilience, cut carbon and get better value from investment. 

UK construction businesses have many of the technologies, products and delivery capabilities that can help solve these challenges. The hard part is getting good ideas into use: proving them in real delivery environments, building confidence among buyers and creating a route from one successful project to wider adoption. 

Connected Places Catapult helps make that happen. 

We bring construction businesses together with infrastructure clients, delivery partners,  government and investors around real market needs. We help test and demonstrate new approaches, build the evidence needed for adoption and create routes into UK and international markets. 

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Our services

We work with UK construction businesses, infrastructure clients, delivery partners, government and investors to turn shared industry challenges into practical routes to adoption and growth. 

How we can help: 

Our focus areas

Digital construction

Digital construction can improve how assets are planned, designed, built, operated and maintained, increasing productivity, improving decision-making and reducing risk across the asset lifecycle.

We help create the conditions for digital construction to be adopted at scale, working across industry and government standards, information requirements, skills and delivery processes.  

Our Digital Construction International Programme helps public sector organisations build this capability, while creating opportunities for UK expertise to enter new markets. 

Infrastructure innovation

 Infrastructure programmes face many of the same problems: improving productivity, reducing cost and carbon, managing risk and delivering safely in complex environments. 

Yet solutions are still often developed or tested project by project, duplicating effort and making it harder for proven solutions to scale. 

Through the Infrastructure Industry Innovation Partnership (i3P) and targeted improvement programmes, we bring infrastructure clients, Tier 1 contractors, construction businesses and technical specialists together around shared challenges. 

We help partners define the problem, test potential solutions, gather useful evidence and create a clearer route into wider use. 

This allows clients to learn from each other rather than starting again each time, while giving construction businesses a stronger basis for taking proven solutions to other projects and sectors. 

The future of construction

We focus on areas where infrastructure clients have clear challenges, innovation can deliver measurable value, and UK businesses have the potential to build capabilities that can scale across projects, sectors and international markets.

Digital whole life: 
Using connected asset information across design, construction, operation, maintenance and renewal. 

Asset monitoring and predictive maintenance: 
Using sensors and condition data to understand how assets are performing and identify maintenance needs earlier.

Digital delivery, data and assurance: 
Improving information, workflows and assurance so project teams can make better decisions and reduce delivery risk. 

Safety and workforce technology: 
Using technology to improve safety, visibility and decision-making on site. 

Industrialised construction: 
Using standardisation, platform approaches, manufacturing and offsite methods to improve productivity, quality and repeatability. 

Automation and robotics: 
Applying automated tools and robotics where they can improve productivity, safety and consistency. 

Low-carbon and circular delivery: Reducing carbon, waste and material use through lower-carbon products, reuse and more circular approaches to construction. 

Photo of Sameer Savani

We have an imperative to deliver the UK’s ambitious construction and infrastructure plans, utilise rapidly-evolving technology, and adapt to the challenges of climate change. Innovation is integral to this, and the UK has never been short on that.

Sameer Savani, Transport & Infrastructure Managing Director,

Connected Places Catapult

Scaling SME growth

We work directly with high potential transport businesses in the UK to support growth and commercialisation through our projects and programmes, which aim to:

  • Help SMEs turn potential into performance
  • Reduce risk so individual businesses can scale
  • Support SMEs to compete in real markets
8,468 jobs and £698m investment linked to innovation support
Article

8,468 jobs and £698m investment linked to innovation support

Economic growth depends on businesses being able to commercialise innovation, win customers and scale.
Allye Energy: providing batteries out in the field
Article

Allye Energy: providing batteries out in the field

Second life batteries are being repurposed for use on construction sites by a Catapult-backed SME with ambitious growth targets.

Recent projects and open calls

Diesel-Free Sites Adoption Programme
Opportunity

Diesel-Free Sites Adoption Programme

Join the Diesel-Free Sites Adoption Programme, a four-month opportunity for UK SMEs who have proven diesel free infrastructure solutions and who are looking for wider industry adoption through live demonstration and industry engagement.
HMGCC Co-Creation: Visualising Smart Cities
Opportunity

HMGCC Co-Creation: Visualising Smart Cities

Can you help us see inside a smart city? This is the focus of the latest funded challenge launched by HMGCC Co-Creation.
Infrastructure Industry Innovation Partnership (i3P)
Project

Infrastructure Industry Innovation Partnership (i3P)

Join the i3P community to drive the future transformation of the infrastructure and construction industry.

Have you got an innovative pilot, project or solution?

Case studies and reports

Digitalising the planning system
Case Study

Digitalising the planning system

The planning system is fundamental to how places are shaped, yet many local authorities across the UK still rely on manual, paper-based processes that can slow progress and limit transparency.
Green Infrastructure Horizon Scan
Report

Green Infrastructure Horizon Scan

Overview of the UK sector and opportunities to support growth.

Interested in collaborating with us to de-risk new technologies and solutions and implement innovation at scale?

Latest news and articles

New support for transport and construction innovators to scale their business
News

New support for transport and construction innovators to scale their business

A new programme of tailored support will help UK SMEs with proven solutions to commercialise at scale.
excavator on construction site
News

Applications open for Diesel-Free Sites Programme  

Up to £60,000 is available to UK SMEs to deploy proven diesel-free construction solutions with Costain and Anglian Water.
Allye Energy: providing batteries out in the field
Article

Allye Energy: providing batteries out in the field

Second life batteries are being repurposed for use on construction sites by a Catapult-backed SME with ambitious growth targets.