Construction

Helping UK construction businesses scale proven capabilities and grow.

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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. 

£400m

efficiency opportunity identified through i3P’s work on aligned digital delivery

56

trials and demonstrators delivered in FY25-26.

£698 million

in private investment raised by SMEs supported by Connected Places Catapult since 2019.

£100 million

in cost savings for HS2 linked to our programmes.

The Future of Infrastructure Innovation

Promising solutions are being developed and tested across UK infrastructure, but too often they struggle to move beyond individual projects.

Our latest report looks at how stronger coordination between clients, government, industry and innovators can help proven approaches scale, reduce duplication and improve the return from infrastructure investment. 

Download the report

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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: 

Identify common construction and infrastructure delivery challenges 

Bring clients and businesses together around clear market needs ​

Test and demonstrate technologies and new delivery approaches 

Generate evidence and reference cases that give buyers greater confidence 

Support businesses to understand assurance, standards, regulation and procurement requirements 

Connect UK businesses with opportunities in new sectors and international markets 

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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. 

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Digital Construction International Programme (DCIP)

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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. 

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Infrastructure Industry Innovation Partnership (i3P)

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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
Explore SME growth stories
Carbon capture concrete firm secures £2.5m investment
Article

Carbon capture concrete firm secures £2.5m investment

Advanced materials specialist Vateris – a recipient of Catapult support – has secured £2.5 million of investment towards scaling its carbon capture technology for use as additives in concrete.
3 months ago
Housing leads urge colleagues to take bold decisions together
Article

Housing leads urge colleagues to take bold decisions together

Proposals are being explored to test whether the i3P collaborative delivery model – used across major infrastructure programmes – could help unlock challenges on large and complex housing sites, delegates to the Connected Places Catapult pavilion at UKREiiF heard.
3 months ago

Recent projects and open calls

Aspirational public realm
Project

Public Realm Innovation Lab

Supporting innovation in public spaces—helping to create places that are more inclusive, sustainable, and commercially successful.
1 year ago
Aerial view of the library of Birmingham Baskerville House Centenary
Project

DIATOMIC

DIATOMIC (Digital InnovAtion TransfOrMatIve Change) is designed to accelerate place-based innovation in the West Midlands, harnessing the region’s existing international relationships through a series of targeted initiatives.
1 year ago
Clean Futures
Project

Clean Futures

Clean Futures is supporting the West Midlands’ transport sector as it transitions from fossil fuels to clean technologies. The programme is also driving regional economic growth by accelerating the route to market for SMEs in the sector.
1 year ago

Have you got an innovative pilot, project or solution?

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Case studies and reports

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

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Latest news and articles

Carbon capture concrete firm secures £2.5m investment
Article

Carbon capture concrete firm secures £2.5m investment

Advanced materials specialist Vateris – a recipient of Catapult support – has secured £2.5 million of investment towards scaling its carbon capture technology for use as additives in concrete.
3 months ago
UK and Canada to collaborate on digital construction
News

UK and Canada to collaborate on digital construction

A new agreement will see the two countries work together to realise the productivity, efficiency and sustainability benefits of implementing digital construction techniques.
3 months ago
Housing leads urge colleagues to take bold decisions together
Article

Housing leads urge colleagues to take bold decisions together

Proposals are being explored to test whether the i3P collaborative delivery model – used across major infrastructure programmes – could help unlock challenges on large and complex housing sites, delegates to the Connected Places Catapult pavilion at UKREiiF heard.
3 months ago

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