PM's Industrial strategy signals good times for UK infrastructure

“On the whole I think the speech is positive both for organisations who own the infrastructure as well as the business that support the industry. There are two points of the speech that will really help, which are the commitment to upgrade infrastructure and to improve government procurement.

“What is not clear from the speech is whether the infrastructure upgrades will be in large scale capital schemes, on the trunk road network or on local roads, but nonetheless it is a positive commitment for the industry that the May government places importance on infrastructure. The procurement side should have improvements for both the government agencies – procuring good services can be costly and slow, as well as for the supporting industry who sell to these organisations.

“I think it is vital for infrastructure projects to receive support from the PM – our transport infrastructure has suffered from underinvestment over a long period of time so it helps provide confidence to the industry that things will improve and move forwards, as well as provide confidence for companies to invest in people and technology to help drive it forwards.

“Combined with the government's pledge to spend £1.2 billion on local roads funding to improve roads, cut congestion and improve journey times 10 days ago, this has been a very positive period for UK infrastructure and the most positivity for local councils too.

“At a more specific, Yotta focussed level, the other element in the statement which is interesting is “Smart energy, robotics, artificial intelligence and 5G mobile network technology are some of the areas that could receive support through a new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, according to Downing Street.”

“We see that connectivity of infrastructure assets is moving forwards more and more and will be an integral part of how we see asset management software – connecting devices and assets, so investment in data networks should help support this direction.”