Analysing the UK infrastructure pipeline: £718 billion is the floor, not the ceiling

The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) is the new government body responsible for infrastructure strategy and delivery. Launched in April 2025, it brought together the National Infrastructure Commission and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, and reports to HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office. One of its core roles is publishing the infrastructure pipeline: a single, public view of planned investment across the UK. 

The pipeline now lists 734 planned projects covering £718 billion of private and public sector investment over the next decade. It’s a big number, and it has grown fast: the first version, published in July 2025, outlined £530 billion. That’s a 35% increase. 

But this headline figure only tells part of the story. We have worked through the March 2026 dataset line by line, and the most striking finding was what the £718 billion leaves out. 

1 Our analysis identifies a core gap 

The pipeline’s £718 billion is the sum of annual spend profiles over the next 10 years. Projects without a spend profile add nothing to the total, however large they are. 

Our analysis found that 189 of the 454 projects and programmes at the top of the pipeline’s hierarchy, around four in ten, have no 10-year spend profile. They include some of the UK’s most significant schemes: 

• Sizewell C nuclear power station, which carries a total capital cost of at least £38 billion 

• Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, which is of a similar magnitude (though mid-construction) 

• Northern Powerhouse Rail, around £5 billion 

• Lower Thames Crossing, more than £10 billion 

• redevelopment of Euston station, more than £300 million 

• East West Rail east of Milton Keynes to Cambridge 

• new public private partnership for neighbourhood health centres. 

Where these unprofiled projects do report a capital cost, it adds up to around £100 billion. Most report no cost at all. 

The pattern is similar in the regulated sectors. The pipeline captures investment only for the current price control period, so water runs to 2029/30 and electricity distribution reflects only the current settlement, ending in 2028. Investment beyond those dates is real, but because it’s not yet agreed, it doesn’t appear in the pipeline. 

The result is a spend profile that peaks in 2026/27 and falls steadily after. By 2034/35, annual spend in the pipeline is less than a third of its peak. That decline reflects the way the data was obtained, not any drop in the UK’s need for infrastructure in the 2030s. NISTA will have reached out to each of the major economic departments and acquired their build-out plans. These naturally tend to focus as far as political horizons typically extend, which is rarely beyond the next election. 

The second half of the decade will fill up as projects mature, spending reviews allocate funding and regulators set new price controls, and next year’s update to the pipeline should show this. But organisations that engage now, while projects are still being defined and costed, will have the most influence over how they take shape. 

2 Energy leads the sectors 

Energy is the pipeline’s largest sector by a distance, at around half of all planned investment. Wind alone makes up the largest share within energy, with £136 billion of potential investment over the next 10 years. 

The sector label hides a split. Our analysis of the energy lines shows: 

• Around two-thirds is clean power and electricity networks: wind, solar, storage, nuclear, transmission and distribution 

• More than a quarter is North Sea oil and gas, covering both new capital expenditure and decommissioning 

• The remainder is gas networks and nuclear decommissioning 

Most of the growth since July 2025 has been driven by clean energy. Offshore wind rose from around £15 billion to around £100 billion, and onshore wind from around £5 billion to £34 billion, largely because the National Energy System Operator added its generation data for the first time. 

This makes the pipeline a much better guide to the energy transition than it was a year ago. It also highlights the difference in how energy is funded, when compared to other infrastructure assets: much of the UK’s energy infrastructure is financed by private capital and ultimately paid for through consumer bills, whereas sectors such as roads, rail and defence depend more directly on public expenditure. Hence, when HM Treasury funding is tight, it is natural that a greater proportion of the infrastructure pipeline is derived from private sector investment, and in this year’s pipeline that is energy. A further likely driver is the decision by the two Labour administrations since 2024 to shift strategically towards home-grown energy generation. 

3 Follow the programmes, not just the projects 

A list of 734 items suggests a market spread across hundreds of opportunities. Yet in practice, value is concentrated: 

• The 10 largest lines account for around 60% of the pipeline’s 10-year value 

• The 20 largest account for around three-quarters 

Many of these large lines aren’t single projects. They’re portfolios, funds or regulatory settlements. Examples include a single Great Britain-wide offshore wind line worth around £100 billion, electricity transmission investment under Ofgem’s third network price control (RIIO-3), NHS estate maintenance and repair, and capital funding for schools and colleges. Frameworks, regulatory mechanisms and funding rounds will decide who delivers much of this work. 

4 The regional pipeline 

The pipeline has a clear regional dimension. Less than a quarter of its 10-year value is tied to a single region, and the remainder sits in lines covering offshore waters, Great Britain, England or the UK as a whole, which suggests the regional split was not available to NISTA. 

Where regional figures are available, they show real opportunity outside London. Scotland can expect around £25 billion of investment to 2034/35, driven largely by onshore wind, with the West Midlands at around £23 billion and north-west England at about £16 billion. 

The more significant shift is who is supplying the data. The March 2026 update drew on 21 major private sector infrastructure bodies, 13 central government departments, nine combined authorities and five regulators and independent public bodies. In our analysis, the Greater London Authority and combined authorities together account for around one in six pipeline entries. The Transport for City Regions fund, worth more than £15 billion over the decade, is one of the pipeline’s 15 largest lines. 

Some of this local pipeline is still at an early stage. Greater Manchester’s 16 entries and Tees Valley’s 12, for example, don’t yet carry 10-year spend profiles. Future iterations of the pipeline may focus more on regional activity. 

The political direction points towards more local control. Andy Burnham’s government is likely to watch closely for decisions on Northern Powerhouse Rail and city-region mass transit, and any move towards greater fiscal powers for combined authorities could change how large transport, flood defence and housing-enabling schemes are prioritised and procured. If that happens, mayoral authorities will become more important clients, co-funders and sponsors. Many will need support to turn ambition into investable, deliverable programmes. 

5 Where private capital fits 

The pipeline relies heavily on private money. Of the £718 billion, £252 billion is public funding, £247 billion private and £219 billion a mix of the two. Our analysis of how that private capital is expected to earn a return shows: 

• Contracts for difference, the government-backed price mechanism for low-carbon generation, are the largest revenue model by value 

• The regulated asset base model, used across energy and water networks, comes second 

• Only a handful of lines use a public private partnership or concession model: the political legacy of the private finance initiative (PFI) is clear 

For investors, the most immediate opportunity is in water. Forty projects are actively seeking private finance, 35 of them as equity. The £21 billion of private investment quantified in the pipeline comes almost entirely from new water resource schemes, including reservoirs, transfers, recycling and desalination. NISTA’s investor guide identifies 27 water and wastewater projects totalling £30 billion, with a significant portion available as equity. All of these are at scoping or design stage and not yet procured. 

The larger, less visible opportunity sits in the 165 projects where the approach to private finance is marked ‘Undecided’. In our analysis, these account for more than 40% of the pipeline’s 10-year value, most of it in energy. These are the schemes where business models, risk allocation and funding structures are still to be settled. 

Public financial institutions (‘Pufins’) are present but not yet prominent in the data. Only two projects record support from the National Wealth Fund: Sizewell C and the Haweswater Aqueduct Resilience Programme. Grant Thornton expects this to matter more in future updates, with a greater proportion of investment stemming from the Pufins, including the newly announced Great British Grid. 

6 Why the pipeline is not a guarantee 

The pipeline is a signal of direction, but it is not a guarantee of delivery. Three issues stand out. 

1. Funding certainty is limited. By value, only around a third of project-level spend is recorded as fully funded. Around a sixth reflects an identified need without funding attached, and around two-fifths has no stated funding status.
   
   
2. The fiscal picture has shifted since March. The Defence Investment Plan published in June is funded partly by a 1% contribution from other departments’ capital budgets, worth £4 billion, alongside up to £700 million of savings from roads and an additional £2 billion from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. The Department for Transport will consult on reductions to its third Road Investment Strategy, including possibly cancelling the A38 Derby Junctions and A46 Newark Bypass schemes. Both still appear in the March dataset.
   
   
3. Politics and planning are in transition. A new government took office in July 2026. Planning reforms under the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 took effect from 24 July 2026, but their impact on consenting timescales is not yet proven. 

NISTA has committed to adding new functionality and information every six months, so the next update should begin to reflect these changes. That said, at time of writing (October 2026) the next update is overdue. 

What this means for you 

The pipeline has given the UK something it has lacked for a long time: a single, up to date public view of its infrastructure ambitions. The opportunity now is to read it critically, and to help fill the gaps before they become delays. 

• Investors and funders. Look beyond the quantified £21 billion. The water resource schemes are the most mature equity opportunity, but the greater scale lies in the ‘Undecided’ projects, particularly in energy, where early involvement can shape investable structures. 

• Public sector, mayoral and regulated clients. The pipeline is becoming the shared reference point for government, investors and industry. Getting regional projects profiled, costed and clearly positioned, with a credible funding and financing route, will increasingly influence where capital and supply chain capacity go. That is especially true for combined authorities as devolution deepens. 

If you would like to discuss your project, or have thoughts on the pipeline, do get in touch with Andy Boak or Alasdair Grainger