At a Glance: Budget confirms £900m for the Lower Thames Crossing and devolves £13bn to metro mayors, while designating data centres as nationally significant infrastructure projects.
At a Glance: UK construction output is set to grow 4.5% in 2025 to £168.6bn, driven by housing and record repair and maintenance workloads despite persistent labour and planning constraints.
At a Glance: New safety, procurement and carbon rules – including Gateway controls, a Building Safety Levy and whole-life carbon reporting – fundamentally reshape project risk from 2025/26.
At a Glance: Autumn Budget energy measures remove policy costs from bills and extend low‑carbon incentives, but high oil and gas taxes keep upstream investment under pressure.
At a Glance: Major energy and infrastructure schemes progress, from a £700m Mersey Bridge to grid-scale storage and 1.9GW of new solar, as offshore delays test supply chains.
Today’s update: the November Budget hardens the policy backdrop for UK construction, coupling targeted infrastructure funding and devolved investment power with tighter tax, safety and carbon regimes. Market data point to a modest rebound in activity, but the new regulatory load, energy policy shifts and evolving NSIP landscape will shape where capacity and capital actually flow. Here’s what you need to know to stay ahead today.
Ongoing Stories
🏛️ Following earlier coverage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and efforts to speed up approvals, the Budget’s move to classify data centres as nationally significant infrastructure projects adds a concrete new planning fast‑track for a key growth asset class. (Source: Data Center Dynamics)
🚆 Returning to the theme of central government using major schemes to drive regional growth, the confirmed £900m for the Lower Thames Crossing underlines continued backing for large road tunnels even as wider pipeline risks and delivery challenges are being debated. (Source: ICE)
🌱 Building on previous concerns over infrastructure delivery risk and supply chain strain, today’s updates on offshore energy delays and rapid solar and storage build‑out highlight a widening gap between low‑carbon ambition and the capacity of grids and contractors to keep pace. (Source: PV Magazine, Energy-Storage.news)
Top 5 Headlines
🏛️ Budget 2025: £900m for Lower Thames Crossing and £13bn devolved funding reshape infrastructure map
The Chancellor has confirmed a final £900m of government funding for the Lower Thames Crossing road tunnel, locking in support for the scheme. The Budget also devolves £13bn of flexible funding to seven Mayoral Strategic Authorities between 2026‑27 and 2029‑30 for skills, infrastructure and business support, and commits to building or upgrading 250 neighbourhood health centres. New targeted place‑based projects include a science centre in Darlington and a sports quarter in Peterborough, alongside tougher Construction Industry Scheme rules and continued landfill tax exemptions for quarry backfilling. For contractors and developers, the package signals a shift towards mayoral‑led pipelines and health‑led community estate upgrades, but with tighter compliance expectations. (Source: ICE, Approach Personnel)
💰 UK construction market to grow 4.5% in 2025 to £168.6bn amid housing and R&M surge
New forecasts project UK construction output rising 4.5% in 2025 to £168.6bn, with private housing starts expected to rebound by 13% in 2025 and 15% in 2026. Official data show Q3 2025 output up 0.1% quarter‑on‑quarter, led by record renovation and repair activity now 24% above pre‑pandemic levels, alongside robust commercial and industrial work including gigafactories and data centres. Public sector activity is set to grow through hospital expansions and school modernisation, even as material price volatility, planning delays and labour shortages remain structural headwinds. The outlook suggests volume opportunities across housing, retrofit and industrial, but only for teams that can price risk and secure skills effectively. (Source: ONS, Business Wire)
🚆 £700m Mersey Gateway Bridge contract awarded as UK backs big-ticket infrastructure
Spain’s FCC has secured the £700m contract to deliver the 2.13km Mersey Gateway Bridge in Liverpool, designed to carry 80,000 vehicles a day. The scheme adds to a pipeline of major UK road and bridge projects moving into delivery at the same time as the Lower Thames Crossing gains full funding. For the supply chain, this deepens multi‑year civils demand in the North West and strengthens competition from overseas contractors on UK megaprojects. (Source: Industrial Info)
🌱 Budget energy package cuts bill policy costs but leaves upstream investors wary
From April 2026, around £134 of annual policy costs will be removed from typical household energy bills, with 75% of Renewables Obligation costs moved into general taxation. The Warm Homes plan rises by £1.5bn to £14.7bn for low‑income support, while the ECO insulation scheme will end in April 2026 and the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and EV purchase grants are extended with EV support guaranteed to 2029/30. Industry body OEUK warns that continued high oil and gas taxation could still stall North Sea investment and associated jobs. The measures support consumer affordability and low‑carbon demand but may complicate near‑term investment decisions in domestic hydrocarbons. (Source: GOV.UK, Octopus Energy, OEUK)
🏗️ New safety, procurement and carbon rules reset project compliance from 2025/26
The Building Safety Act is now fully in force with a Building Safety Regulator and mandatory Gateways governing high‑risk residential schemes, backed by a Remediation Acceleration Plan targeting completion of works on buildings above 18m by end‑2029. A new Building Safety Levy will apply from Autumn 2025 to residential building control applications, alongside requirements for sprinklers in all new care homes and second staircases in residential buildings over 18m from late 2026. Procurement reforms introduce three simplified public contract options and stricter payment terms, while the forthcoming Future Homes Standard, Part Z whole‑life carbon reporting (from 2025/26) with embodied carbon limits (by 2027/28), and Construction Products (Amendment) Regulations from January 2026 collectively tighten quality and carbon obligations. Developers, contractors and manufacturers face higher front‑end compliance costs but a clearer framework for safety, decarbonisation and dispute risk. (Source: North Bar Engineer, Pinsent Masons, legislation.gov.uk)
Also in the news
🚆 The Budget’s £13bn devolved funding pot will give seven Mayoral Strategic Authorities new flexibility to back local transport, skills and infrastructure priorities, reshaping regional pipelines from 2026‑27. (Source: ICE)
🌱 UK solar capacity has increased by 1.9GW in 12 months, driven by projects including the 373MW Cleve Hill solar farm, reinforcing large‑scale PV as a mainstream infrastructure asset. (Source: PV Magazine)
🌱 Highview has broken ground on a 300MWh liquid air energy storage facility at Carrington with a £300m investment, adding long‑duration storage capacity to support renewables integration. (Source: Energy-Storage.news)
🚆 Offshore energy project delays are emerging as a key supply chain risk, with knock‑on impacts expected for contractors, fabricators and port infrastructure plans. (Source: Energy-Storage.news)
🚆 The UK has committed £1.7bn to European Space Agency programmes, signalling continued investment in high‑value space and satellite infrastructure with downstream implications for digital and defence projects. (Source: GOV.UK)
The Daily Build is written for people shaping the UK’s construction and infrastructure pipeline, from investors and clients to delivery teams. If today’s briefing is useful, consider forwarding it to a colleague planning budgets, bids or programmes for 2026 and beyond.