Type: Explainer

What is the key to improving infrastructure productivity? Have your say!

Date: 03 June 2026

A new standard, which will guide the sector in optimising productivity, is set to launch in 2026. Public consultation is open from 3 June to 1 July.

What is the key to improving infrastructure productivity? Have your say! — This PAS will establish a common way of optimising productivity throughout the infrastructure lifecycle. Image credit: Shutterstock

The ICE has been working to improve infrastructure productivity for several years.

It’s an important and intricate area in which consensus, particularly on best-practice principles, has been hard to achieve.

The UK government's 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy, published in 2025, showed that productivity has fallen behind competitors including France, Germany and the United States.

Onsite productivity has flatlined, and a growing maintenance backlog is compounding the cost of new projects.

At least £725bn of public funding has been set for the next decade, with the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) charged with revamping how that investment is planned and delivered.

With this in mind, the sector can't afford to continue on the same trajectory.

To help guide this change, a new publicly available specification (PAS) is being developed.

Have your say

Members can now share their views on the draft PAS standard through a public consultation that will run from 3 June to 1 July 2026.

Help develop the standard

Introducing PAS 4010:2026 - improving productivity in infrastructure development and delivery

The new PAS, expected in autumn 2026, will establish a common way of managing productivity in UK projects, including new and adapted infrastructure.

PAS 4010 aims to help all members of the value chain remove constraints by improving effectiveness (doing the right thing) and efficiency (doing things right).

It centres on using a productivity management strategy (PMS).

This provides the organisational framework, governance structure and performance processes to manage, assure and continuously enhance productivity improvement.

Who is PAS 4010 for?

PAS 4010 is for everyone involved in developing and delivering UK infrastructure.

It's intended to be specified by clients to set out requirements for:

asset owners
contracting authorities
project and programme managers
designers
construction and logistics planners
contractors
product/material/equipment suppliers

Although they're designed for the UK market, PASs are recognised worldwide as high-quality specifications.

ICE and productivity

Ed McCann, ICE Past President, made productivity his theme for the year, and the focus of the 2022 flagship State of the Nation report.

"Improving the productivity with which infrastructure is designed, built and operated means maximising effectiveness and efficiency at every stage of the infrastructure lifecycle," said McCann in the opening pages of the report.

"Only in this way can we hope to meet the needs of society while staying within the carrying capacity of our planet."

Read the report

Who is developing PAS 4010?

The British Standards Institution (BSI) is facilitating the development of PAS 4010 as a national standards body.

PAS 4010 is being project-sponsored by the ICE and the UK government’s Department for Transport (DfT), with the latter also providing funding for the standard.

Its development is supported by a steering group, of which McCann is a member, and a Technical Advisory Panel (TAP), made up of industry experts from across the sector.

Technical author

The BSI has appointed Mark Hansford, an independent consultant, as the technical author for this specification.

Steering group

Through consultation with the ICE, the BSI selected expert stakeholders to join the PAS' steering group.

The group is made up of representatives from government, academia, industry and asset owners.

It's responsible for providing technical insights and comments as well as reviewing and approving drafts of the PAS document during each stage of development.

Technical advisory panel (TAP)

Set up and convened by the ICE, this panel is made up of technical experts and sponsor representatives. It serves as a conduit to the wider stakeholder community.

The TAP is chaired by Andy Alder, managing director of major infrastructure delivery at Anglian Water and co-chair of the ICE’s Engineering Excellence Community.

Panel members provide intermediate reviews of the draft document before it goes to the steering group. Final editorial authority remains with the steering group.

This panel is also responsible for assisting the technical author with developing the ICE guidance note.

This associated document will expand on specific topics and provide case study examples of when the approach has been used in real-life projects.

Learn more: How Project 13 is helping to transform infrastructure delivery

What stage of development is it in?

A full editorial and steering group review has taken place, and a draft of PAS 4010 is now available for the public to comment on. The deadline to comment is 1 July.

Following the public consultation, PAS 4010 will undergo further TAP and steering group review before being published in October.

Visit the BSI's Standards Development Portal to have your say.

Talking productivity

During his presidential year, Ed McCann held Q&As around the world exploring the challenges of productivity. Watch a few:

Related events

Watch Ed McCann's presidential address, a film titled How to thrive in the 21st century.

To launch the 2022 State of the Nation report, a panel discussion with industry experts explored how to enhance productivity at every stage of the infrastructure lifecycle.

As part of a 2023 Next Steps policy research programme, the ICE held a panel discussion on how to improve the productivity of infrastructure delivery in Australia.