The UK construction sector has a major impact on communities across the country.
Not only does the sector provide large numbers of high-skilled, well-paid jobs, it creates thousands of supply chain opportunities every year.
In 2018, the government published a ‘Construction Sector Deal’ that will:
“Continue to use public sector procurement to drive investment in the skills needed to support modernisation and industry-led innovation.”
Read more about the investment pipeline into infrastructure and construction that plans to spend over £600 billion over the next decade.
The future of UK construction and infrastructure
The UK Government is in the early stages of the “greatest construction programmes in our history”.
As part of the Construction Sector Deal, the government has plans to build more affordable housing and deliver more infrastructure projects such as Crossrail and the third runway at Heathrow.
Already there are “over £400 billion of planned projects, programmes and other investments in the pipeline, including around £190 billion to be invested by 2020/21” and, according to the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, nearly 700 projects, programmes and other investments are in the pipeline.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industry released a statement at the time of the launch of the Construction Sector Deal, describing the:
“vision for a construction sector that more than meets these challenges: a sector that can build new homes in weeks – and even days – rather than months; that can deliver new buildings at a third of the cost; that can provide affordable, energy efficient homes.”
How will this affect procurement professionals?
With targets and expectations higher than ever before, the latest public sector deals put pressure on procurement professionals from both public and private sector backgrounds to complete efficient and successful procurements.
The Carillion collapse in 2018 displayed how poor supplier management can cause large construction projects to fail. The crisis within this sector shocked those in its supply chain as well as those working in the construction sector, with the aftermath seeing hundreds of job losses.
One of the main mistakes made by Carilion was that the business chose many of their suppliers on the principle of cost reduction.
Those working on future construction projects must have the tools that can support the evaluation and management of suppliers on several factors. The type of approach reduces the chance of construction buyers being hit by a Carillion-style crisis.
Source suppliers in the most efficient way possible
Delta eSourcing has worked with both public and private sector buyers for many years.
Our solution is trusted by over 500 UK public sector organisations and a list of high profile private sector customers too, including construction customers.
With over £600 billion of projected public and private investment in construction over the next ten years, we can support buyers to find suppliers and manage the tenders that they have awarded.
Find out more by requesting a live demo of our eSourcing tools with a member of our expert procurement team.
