The Infrastructure Productivity Scale-Up Programme is a four-month programme providing UK businesses with the industry connections, market insight and support needed to scale proven productivity solutions.
Connected Places Catapult is seeking applications from high potential UK SMEs with proven solutions that can address one of the infrastructure sector’s most pressing productivity challenges (see the four challenges listed below). With an increasing focus within the sector to improve productivity and delivery outcomes, alongside the introduction of standards such as PAS 4010, there is a significant opportunity for innovative businesses to support industry transformation.
The programme is supported by the Infrastructure Industry Innovation Partnership (i3P), a client-led community that brings together infrastructure owners, Tier 1 contractors, consultants and delivery partners to tackle shared industry challenges, develop practical solutions and support wider adoption across major programmes. Find out more about i3P.
This programme is seeking up to ten businesses with solutions that have already demonstrated operational value in real-world conditions and are ready to scale. The programme is centred on helping businesses overcome barriers to adoption and accelerate deployment across the sector, rather than focus on technology development.
Successful applicants will receive tailored support to strengthen their evidence base, improve procurement readiness, build strategic industry relationships and develop a clear route to market. Through industry engagement, expert support and demonstration opportunities, participating SMEs will be better positioned to secure customers, build credibility and scale their impact across UK infrastructure.
Participants can apply for up to £8,000 (including VAT) to support covering costs for a demonstration of their solution. Applicants will need to submit a high-level demonstration plan, including the intended activity, expected evidence and outcomes and a broad cost breakdown. Final funding allocations will be agreed after selection and will depend on the quality and suitability of each proposal and the overall funding available.
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To be eligible, applicants must:
- Be a UK registered small or medium-sized enterprise
- An innovative technology or solution at TRL 8 or above.
- Have a proven solution that has moved beyond research and development, and has been proven in real world conditions
- Have a solution which addresses at least one of the four published challenge areas
- Have tested, demonstrated or deployed the solution in a relevant environment
- Be able to provide evidence from at least one real project
- Be able to demonstrate commercial potential
- Already operate within construction or infrastructure, or be seeking to transfer a proven solution from another sector
Expectations of participating businesses:
- Be willing to work collaboratively with Connected Places Catapult and programme partners
- Be able to commit appropriate time and resource to the programme
- Be willing to travel occasionally for face-to-face meetings, including a Welcome Day, programme workshops and showcase events
- Be available to participate actively in programme activities between October 2026 and March 2027
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The Infrastructure Productivity Scale-Up Programme is built around four pillars designed to help businesses accelerate adoption and scale within the infrastructure sector:
Build your productivity case
Gain a deeper understanding of industry productivity challenges, procurement requirements and emerging standards such as PAS 4010. Through expert-led industry insights and mentoring, participants will be better equipped to navigate the infrastructure market and position their solutions for successful adoption.
Access expert guidance and networks
Connect directly with infrastructure owners, operators, contractors, investors and other key stakeholders. The programme creates opportunities for meaningful introductions to help businesses build relationships that can lead to commercial opportunities and strategic partnerships.
Develop your adoption strategy
Receive tailored support to strengthen your commercial proposition and prepare for scale. Participants will benefit from business needs assessments, growth planning and investor engagement opportunities, helping to ensure their business is ready to meet industry demand and secure future growth.
Validate and showcase your solution
Showcase your solution in front of relevant industry audiences and demonstrate its real-world impact. By providing opportunities to evidence value and outcomes, the programme helps build confidence among potential customers and supports the journey towards wider adoption and procurement. Cohort members will have the opportunity to apply for up to £8,000 to support costs to demonstrate your solution to potential buyers.
Together, these four pillars are designed to help SMEs move beyond proving their technology works and towards achieving repeatable commercial deployment across the UK infrastructure sector.
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We are looking for productivity solutions that address one or more of the following challenges:
For full challenge descriptions; please see the Innovation challenges section of the Application Guidance.Challenge 1: How might we create integrated productivity visibility across the supply chain?
On major projects, systems operate in isolation: the client’s scheduling tool doesn’t talk to the designer’s model, which doesn’t connect to the contractor’s site systems. Post-award contracts hide data behind confidentiality clauses. Design-to-build divergence is persistent and invisible. Clients cannot measure supply chain productivity because they lack real-time visibility of site progress, resource utilisation and constraint data. Designers cannot validate assumptions against build performance. Contractors cannot optimise delivery because they lack integrated access to client priorities and schedule interdependencies. PAS 4010 requires productivity data to flow across the supply chain.
Challenge 2: How could we prove and scale methods that reduce waste and delay on infrastructure sites?
Proven digital methods for reducing site inefficiency are held back by specifications and standards written for conventional practice. Digital slump testing has been validated across major programmes and evidenced 10-15% cost and schedule savings, yet manual methods remain the default. Modern methods of construction reduce both cost and environmental impact but are adopted slowly because clients lack a common framework for assessing evidence and specifications preclude their use. Rework and waste are endemic. Much of it is invisible: delays from unplanned constraints, material arrivals held up by upstream processes, and inefficient resource utilisation are buried in schedule variance, not surfaced as distinct problems that can be tracked or managed.
Challenge 3: How might we improve confidence in infrastructure project costs and delivery programmes?
Major infrastructure projects routinely overrun budget and schedule. Uncertainty about cost and timeline is endemic to how projects are procured and managed. Most projects use stage-gate reviews with points of commitment, but few have integrated visibility of the actual drivers of variance: unplanned constraints, supplier delays, design uncertainty, or productivity assumptions that prove wrong on site. Cost and schedule forecasts at design are often disconnected from delivery reality. When projects begin, early performance data that could improve forecasts is not systematically captured or used to adjust baselines. The result is repeated slippage, cost escalation and friction between client and supply chain.
Challenge 4: How might we integrate productivity solutions with the systems and workflows already used by infrastructure clients?
UK infrastructure is conservative. Major clients have entrenched procurement frameworks, long-standing supply chain relationships and systems validated through multiple projects. A solution that requires clients to replace their design tool, scheduling software or site management platform will not be adopted, regardless of technical merit. Integration risk rises sharply when solutions require wholesale change. Solutions that complement existing workflows are adopted. Solutions that require replacement are not. This creates a constraint: the most ambitious innovations often require replacing legacy systems and therefore struggle to find adoption pathways. The pragmatic solutions that work within existing constraints are more likely to scale.
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Connected Places Catapult will host an application support webinar on the 19 August 2026, between 14:00 and 15:00 to give applicants the opportunity to find out more about the programme offer, application and assessment process. Register to attend the webinar here.