UK Infrastructure: A 10 Year Strategy

The government’s Plan for Change sets out clear milestones to put this country on track for a decade of national renewal, with growth and raising living standards across the country as its priority mission. Better infrastructure has a vital role to play in delivery of all of the government’s missions, creating and connecting people to good jobs, supporting new housing and neighbourhoods, ensuring people can depend on vital public services and providing resilience in response to a changing world.

Delivering this requires a new approach. Infrastructure investment has been too erratic and too low in the UK, hampering productivity and wages and making delivery slow and costly. Across policy and delivery, there needs to be more coordination, across sectors and between government and delivery partners.

The government is doing things differently to fix the failures of the past, prioritising long-term outcomes over short-term announcements, providing the certainty and stability needed to attract investment, boosting British supply chains and jobs, and taking a joined-up view to improve planning and delivery across all types of infrastructure.

UK Infrastructure: A 10 Year Strategy (‘the Strategy’) sets out this new approach. It is long-term in nature – backed by at least £725 billion of government funding for infrastructure over the next decade. It is comprehensive – covering both economic and social infrastructure for the first time, recognising that schools and hospitals are just as vital to living standards as road and rail. And it is ambitious – with the upcoming online Infrastructure Pipeline, setting out the full range of projects to be taken forward.

This will support the government’s modern Industrial Strategy, delivering the longterm certainty businesses need, and unlocking the potential of the highest-growth sectors and the places where they are concentrated.

Together, these plans will be an enormous stimulus for British workers and British firms, creating well-paid jobs in every corner of the UK. By dealing with years of chronic underinvestment, productivity will grow, leading to increasing earnings and living standards.

The government will work with businesses and delivery partners to implement this Strategy, holding itself accountable by reporting on progress every two years.

A new approach to infrastructure to drive growth

Infrastructure boosts growth and plays a vital role in delivering higher living standards. It provides the connectivity which supports productivity and efficiency improvements, thriving communities and access to housing. It helps maintain the resilience of the economy to extreme weather and other risks which could drag down growth. And infrastructure supports the public services required to maintain the healthy, well-educated workforce that is essential for long-term economic growth.

For the first time, the government is bringing together economic, social and housing infrastructure under one strategy. The Strategy will not solve everything in one go because of the legacy position on infrastructure, fiscal constraints and capacity in the supply chain. But through this Strategy, a long-term approach, and a willingness to reform the system, the government will start to turn the corner and deliver the change it has promised.

This new approach is based on reforming institutions, providing certainty and removing barriers:

Reforming institutions and the approach to delivery

• The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) has been established to integrate infrastructure policy, strategy and delivery in the centre of government. NISTA is reforming wider processes to ensure delivery is more effective and to develop stronger partnerships with the private sector. It will also help in recommending infrastructure projects with the greatest growth impact.
• The government is improving its approach to project delivery and appraisal, for example through the reforms of the Green Book.
• HM Treasury is introducing ‘place-based’ business cases, to bring together the different projects that are needed to achieve the objectives of a particular place and make sure that central government properly considers complementarities between different projects such as housing and transport.
• The government is also implementing a bespoke approach to governance and funding for current and future mega projects, as set out in the study conducted by the Office for Value for Money (OVfM).
• Five mayoral strategic authorities will join Greater Manchester and the West Midlands in having access to the integrated settlement meaning that mayors representing nearly 40% of people in England will have local control over a single flexible pot for growth and public services priorities.

Providing certainty, confidence and stability

• The government’s fiscal framework introduced at Autumn Budget 2024 has supported a step-change in capital investment, while ensuring debt is on a sustainable trajectory.
• The government is funding at least £725 billion for infrastructure over the next decade, ensuring that infrastructure capital funding continues to grow at least in line with inflation after the current Spending Review period. As part of this, the government is committing to longer-term certainty with some projects and programmes receiving funding certainty even beyond 5 years and up to 10 years in some cases, including the school and college estate, the health estate, and justice estate. This will be a boost for British workers and British firms, creating well-paid jobs across the UK.
• The Infrastructure Pipeline digital portal will be launched in July 2025. This will be regularly updated and will provide comprehensive information on publicly funded and financed economic and major social infrastructure projects, to provide businesses with the certainty they need to invest in skills, technology and market capacity. The Infrastructure Pipeline will also include privately funded and financed schemes where the necessary information is available.

Removing barriers through an enhanced spatial approach to planning

• The government is taking a spatial approach to planning infrastructure, joining up across different sectors and geographies to address both national and local needs.
• Future updates to the Strategy will set out national spatial priorities for England.
• NISTA is leading the development of the government’s national infrastructure spatial digital tool to strengthen the local evidence base for place-based infrastructure investment decisions. This will enable integration of spatial investments across multiple areas such as housing, energy and transport.
• The government is taking forward the most ambitious planning reforms in a generation, including via the flagship Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and is fast-tracking 150 planning decisions on major infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament.
• The government is working to ensure a more consistent approach to the construction sector, including through compliance with the Construction Playbook. It is reforming public procurement, making it simpler, more commercial, better designed to drive up investment in skills and supply chains to boost British jobs – and is consulting on further reforms to ensure public contracts create high quality jobs and boost skills in the communities that most need them.
• The Strategy covers 10 years, with updates every two years to ensure it remains up to date and reflects progress made. Implementation of the Strategy will be overseen by NISTA.

Encouraging private investment

Delivering this ambitious programme for improving economic and social infrastructure in the UK will require increased and sustained investment. A significant increase in private investment is needed to complement and maximise the value of the extensive public investment underway. The UK must build on existing strengths in attracting private capital for the step-change in investment needed to deliver this Strategy’s ambitions.

The government will work with the private sector to harness the potential for private finance – supporting increasing investment in regulated sectors, leveraging private finance in other sectors, supported by public financial institutions, and developing mechanisms to enable private finance to reach infrastructure projects.

The government is taking action to support this in three ways:

• Supporting the supply of private capital into the UK infrastructure market, by working with pension funds and other providers of capital through, for example, the Mansion House Accord.
• Matching these varied sources of capital to investment opportunities, through public financial institutions such as the National Wealth Fund, appropriate regulation, and end-to-end investor support via the Office for Investment (OfI).
• Ensuring a healthy and visible supply of projects to create demand for private capital, by continuing to evolve our infrastructure finance models – including exploring the use of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). PPPs will be considered for projects and sectors where there is a revenue stream and appropriate risk-transfer can be achieved, and value for money for taxpayers can be secured (for example, for financing the development of Euston station). The government will also explore the feasibility of using new PPP models for taxpayer-funded projects (for example in decarbonising the public sector estate and in certain types of primary care and community health infrastructure) in very limited circumstances where they could represent value for money.

On economic regulation, the Department for Business and Trade, HM Treasury and NISTA will continue to take a strategic perspective, recognising that stakeholders and investors value coordination across sectors. Alongside sector specific activities, and following the outcomes of the individual sector reviews, the government will set out an updated approach to economic regulation by the end of 2025.

Unlocking growth across regions

Economic growth is the only way to sustainably increase wages, bring down bills, revitalise our high streets and fix our broken public services. Driving growth across the UK is about making more of our local economies strong and resilient, allowing more people to access new opportunities and a higher quality of life wherever they choose to live.

Infrastructure has a critical role to play in delivering resilient growth across all sectors and regions of the UK, including those underpinning our modern Industrial Strategy. The government’s investment in infrastructure will in turn support British supply chains and jobs.

Boosting growth through transport and digital connectivity

• Fixing the basics through long-term investment in road and rail maintenance: addressing backlogs, fixing potholes and ensuring existing networks are resilient to long-term challenges. £24 billion of capital funding between 2026-27 and 2029-30 has been allocated to National Highways and local authorities to maintain and improve motorways and local roads across the country. This includes investing £1 billion to enhance the road network and create a new Structures Fund that will repair major structures like bridges, flyovers and collapsed roads.
• Record investment in urban transport infrastructure to support our city regions: £15.6 billion investment for public transport systems through the Transport for City Regions settlements, which will include enabling construction to start on West Yorkshire’s Mass Transit system – a more than double real-terms increase in capital spending on local transport in city regions by 2029-30 compared to 2024-25.
• Connecting the towns and cities of the North and Midlands: better connecting the major northern English towns and cities – and increasing agglomeration, fostering sectoral clusters alongside key infrastructure investment, and encouraging greater university collaboration and inward investment.
• Delivering East West Rail to enable the Oxford to Cambridge Corridor: £2.5 billion funding provided at the Spending Review 2025 to support delivery of East West Rail, enabling the delivery of new homes and boosting the local economy by £6.7 billion a year by 2050.
• Progressing High Speed 2 (HS2): Continuing delivery of the high-speed line from Euston to Birmingham and maximising economic development around key stations along the route at Old Oak Common, Euston, Interchange Station (Solihull) and Birmingham Curzon Street.
• Supporting a third runway at Heathrow: inviting proposals to enhance connectivity, reduce travel costs and minimise delays at one of the busiest global airports, whilst meeting legal, environmental and climate obligations.
• Driving forward work on the Lower Thames Crossing: An initial £590 million for 2026-27, provided at Spending Review 2025 to deliver this project. Further work, including on a Regulated Asset Base model, is being undertaken in parallel to design and agree a funding model which delivers value for money for the taxpayer and users.
• Building sovereign compute capacity to support growth: £2 billion to deliver the AI Opportunities Action Plan, which includes expanding compute resource available to academics and researchers, alongside creating AI Growth Zones with enhanced access to power and support for planning approvals to enable investment in AI-enabled data centres and supporting infrastructure.

Providing the right conditions for new housing development

• Committing to clear targets for new homes, allowing for better infrastructure planning: the government has taken decisive action to restore and raise housing targets, ensuring that local authorities, investors, and infrastructure providers have a clearer basis for predicting need and planning accordingly. The OBR recognised the impacts of the government’s changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) at Spring Statement, judging it would boost GDP by 0.2% and add £6.8 billion to the economy by 2029-30.
• Delivering the biggest boost to investment in social and affordable housing in a generation: the government has committed to a comprehensive package of support for social and affordable housing providers, including as announced at Spending Review 2025, confirming £39 billion for a successor to the Affordable Homes Programme over 10 years from 2026-27 to 2035-36.
• Establishing a new National Housing Bank as part of Homes England to catalyse additional private investment: capitalised with £16 billion of new financial capacity, on top of £6 billion existing finance, the new Bank will boost housebuilding through a broader range of development finance products, including new products for SME builders, equity investments that will crowd in institutional investment, and partnership working to support mayoral priorities. Together this is expected to deliver at least 580,000 additional homes.
• Delivering water to new homes and industries: the government has agreed water companies’ water resource plans, unlocking £7.9 billion investment in water resources in the next 5 years – including in the development of 9 new major reservoirs and 9 water transfer schemes. The government is also working to address objections to new developments.
• Increasing energy transmission and distribution network capacity: supporting the sector to deliver the investment needed to enable clean power and support economic growth and development, and speeding up the connections process for new homes and businesses.

Improving the resilience of infrastructure and the reliability of services

• Strengthening resilience standards: mapping existing standards across critical national infrastructure, identifying gaps and strengthening or introducing additional standards where necessary and effective to do so.
• Committing to our flood defence pipeline: a £7.9 billion 10-year pipeline of capital investment to maintain existing and invest in new flood defences, nature-based solutions and property level resilience measures. This investment will benefit 840,000 properties by 2035-36.

Becoming a clean energy superpower

The government’s mission is to make the UK a clean energy superpower by delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating to net zero. This is an historic opportunity to invest in a growing sector of the economy – one of our modern Industrial Strategy growth-driving sectors – to boost energy security, create good jobs at good wages across the country, and deliver wider benefits to society, such as improved air quality.

The government will use infrastructure policy and investment to deliver clean power by 2030 and accelerating to net zero, including by:

• Delivering a flexible, low carbon electricity system by 2030: the Clean Power Action Plan will aim to secure 43-50 GW of offshore wind, 27-29 GW of onshore wind and 45-47 GW of solar generation by 2030 – delivered through the successful Contracts for Difference scheme – while ensuring that there is sufficient short and long duration flexibility that unabated gas provides less than 5% of generation and that consumers are able to access the benefits of flexibility.
• Continuing to invest in Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) and low carbon hydrogen: helping to decarbonise industry and power by allocating £9.4 billion for CCUS to maximise deployment to fill the storage capacity of the East Coast and HyNet Clusters and support the Acorn and Viking clusters through development funding and providing over £500m for hydrogen infrastructure to enable the develop the first regional hydrogen transport network and store.
• Building new nuclear generation: supporting the development of Sizewell C, which will deliver up to 3.2 GW of continuous power generation, enabling one of Europe’s first small modular reactor programmes to provide a further 1.5 GW of power, subject to all relevant approvals, and providing £2.5 billion funding for nuclear fusion research, including support for the world-leading STEP programme in Nottinghamshire. The government is also providing a pathway for privately-led advanced nuclear technologies, with Great British Energy – Nuclear tasked with assessing proposals.
• Establishing Great British Energy: a publicly owned clean energy company which will strategically develop, invest in, and own clean energy projects across the UK. Great British Energy and Great British Energy – Nuclear will together invest more than £8.3 billion over the Spending Review period in homegrown clean power.
• Decarbonising heat and buildings: To cut bills, tackle fuel poverty, and accelerate to net zero, the government is funding the Warm Homes Plan with a total of £13.2 billion over the Spending Review 2025 period, including £5 billion of financial transactions, and Barnett consequentials. This investment will be allocated across schemes that support the rollout of heat pumps, alongside energy efficiency measures and other low-carbon technologies, such as solar and batteries. The government will work with the UK’s expert public finance institutions, including the National Wealth Fund, to support the delivery of the Warm Homes Plan.
• Decarbonising transport: providing £2.6 billion capital investment to decarbonise transport from 2026-27 to 2029-30 to continue to support the rollout of electric vehicles and the required charging infrastructure, as well as encouraging innovation in hard to abate sectors like maritime and aviation.
• Decarbonising the waste sector: transitioning to a circular economy, reducing our reliance on landfill and incineration, and ensuring that new energy from waste plants are carbon capture ready. 

Delivering high quality social infrastructure

Historic underinvestment and lack of strategic planning has left the health, education and justice estates with a substantial maintenance backlog. Many buildings are now beyond repair, unable to accommodate new technology or reform how services are provided. 

By having a long-term strategy that brings together social infrastructure alongside economic infrastructure and housing for the first time, the government can develop assets that are fit to support high quality public services and the places they serve. The government will consider all social infrastructure assets as part of a system. This will be underpinned by:

• A new roadmap to deliver a more efficient and unified approach to social infrastructure: This is the first time government has taken a co-ordinated approach to social infrastructure, and NISTA will work with other parts of government and industry to improve the way in which social infrastructure is planned, delivered and maintained across the system.
• Collaboration across government: For example, the OVfM has conducted a study into public sector procurement of short-term residential accommodation, working in partnership with relevant departments.
• Long-term funding: 10-year funding for specific programmes with details set out in the Infrastructure Pipeline. This will deliver at least £10 billion per year by 2034-35 to maintain and repair health, education and justice infrastructure, rising from over £9 billion in 2025-26 and this will help departments, local areas and industry plan ahead with confidence and invest in the skills and technology needed to improve efficiency.

This is supported by investment in key social infrastructure sectors:

• Health: £70 billion from 2025-26 to 2029-30 for targeted infrastructure replacement, maintenance, critical safety and the wider DHSC portfolio, and allocating up to an additional £49 billion from 2030-31 to 2034-35 for the New Hospital Programme, wider repair of hospital infrastructure, and the eradication of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) from the NHS estate by 2035. This includes over £6 billion per year from 2025-26 to 2034-35 for maintenance and repair of the NHS estate.
• Education: £38 billion in education capital investment from 2025-26 to 2029-30 to ensure schools and colleges are able to deliver the education and skills needed to support local communities and workforces, improve educational outcomes and deliver the modern Industrial Strategy and Plan for Change. The government has committed to expand the School Rebuilding Programme, providing almost £20 billion investment in the programme from 2025-26 to 2034-35. The government has also allocated almost £3 billion per year by 2034-25, rising from £2.4 billion in 2025-26, to improve the condition of the school and college estate.
• Justice: supporting the justice system and keeping the country safe by building 14,000 new prison places by 2031 and allocating at least £600 million per year on average from 2026-27 to 2034-35 for maintenance to protect existing prison and court capacity, rising from £500 million in 2025-26. The government is also providing the funding necessary to deliver transformative reforms to probation, based on the recommendations set out in the Independent Sentencing Review.

Improving the environment

The natural environment is one of the UK’s most vital national assets, providing significant economic benefits, including by cleaning our air and water, protecting against the effects of climate change, safeguarding food security, and improving health and wellbeing from nature-based recreation.

The Strategy sets out how the environment will be improved through:

• A strategic and spatial approach to the environment: driving nature recovery alongside economic growth and streamlining the process of environmental planning assessments. The government is providing £500 million over three years to make it simpler and quicker for developers to meet their environmental obligations, without compromising on environmental improvement, through the Nature Restoration Fund and Marine Recovery Fund. It is also accelerating how Natural England and the Environment Agency process planning applications.
• Investment in net zero, water resources, and the circular economy: mitigating climate change, cleaning up rivers, lakes and seas, and improving resource efficiency.
• Investment in nature-based solutions and green infrastructure: particularly in the flood management sector through the new £7.9 billion 10-year capital investment programme.

Working with devolved governments to deliver infrastructure

The Strategy follows UK government responsibilities, and many aspects of infrastructure are largely devolved. Many of the same challenges and enabling actions identified in this Strategy are being addressed across the devolved governments:

• Northern Ireland: The Investment Strategy for Northern Ireland (ISNI) will set out the Northern Ireland Executive’s Vision and Strategic Objectives for infrastructure up to 2050, alongside a costed infrastructure delivery plan for the next ten years. A draft ISNI was published in 2022, and the final strategy will serve as the Strategic Infrastructure Plan further committed to in the Interim Fiscal Framework (2024). The ISNI aims to invest some £30 billion in infrastructure over ten years, including £26 billion of public funding. The ISNI also includes an Enabling Action Plan setting out twelve strategic actions to unblock and address long-standing infrastructure challenges across the themes of People, Process and Policy.
• Scotland: The Scottish Government’s Infrastructure Investment Plan (IIP) for Scotland 2021-22 to 2025-26 was published in February 2021 and details the long-term vision for infrastructure supporting an inclusive, net zero carbon economy. The period it covers has been extended by one year meaning it will now run to 2026-27. The Scottish Government is also taking action to ensure the planning system promotes delivery. National Planning Framework 4 includes a national spatial strategy, and embeds infrastructure considerations within regional priorities, national developments and national planning policy. Development of the next IIP is underway and is being informed by the recommendations of the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland. This will cover the period from 2027-28 and a draft will be published for consultation.
• Wales: The Wales Infrastructure Investment Strategy (WIIS) was published by the Welsh Government in December 2021 and sets out a 10-year vision of the outcomes that investment in infrastructure should enable. This long-term strategy is underpinned by a series of Infrastructure Finance Plans. These operationalise the WIIS by setting out the key capital programmes that most effectively deliver the outcomes and allocate funding across the relevant budget period. The Welsh Government also publishes a Wales Infrastructure Investment Strategy project pipeline to provide insight to the infrastructure investments that are planned over a three-year period to support delivery of the WIIS.

There is strong alignment between the Strategy and the plans of the devolved governments. In largely reserved areas, like energy and digital infrastructure, the Strategy will deliver for the whole country. A more joined-up approach to infrastructure in reserved areas should also support integration of devolved plans in areas like housing or transport.

The UK Government will continue to work closely with the devolved governments, including through the Council of Nations and Regions and the relevant InterMinisterial Groups established under the Review of Intergovernmental Relations.

Source: UK Government: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-infrastructure-a-10-year-strategy 

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