The streamlining plan is to support the Government’s 2025 strategy for lower cost, lower emissions and faster delivery

Balfour Beatty chief executive Leo Quinn said that the new generation of industrialised construction methods, including offsite and modular building techniques offers the UK construction industry one of the largest opportunities available of any sector to transform its model.

He called on the Government to set project performance criteria and measurement presumptions in favour of offsite, and to begin work on its proposed library of standardised components.

Quinn also called for the Government to move towards a procurement model which favours risk sharing rather than risk transfer and incentivises investment in new construction techniques such as offsite and modular.

He said: “On a national level, industrialised construction would lead to the creation of thousands of jobs across the country over the next few years – if we invest now.

“For everyone in construction to reap the rewards of industrialised construction the industry must increase the pace of change while the public sector and other infrastructure commissioners need to fund schemes that utilise industrialised techniques.

“Yet today, only 12% of construction involves offsite methods. Despite a groundswell of recognition about its benefits, there is also the understandable inertia of a conservative industry with long project cycles and unaligned interests.”

Quinn said that Balfour Beatty recognised that industrialised construction was the best way to shift 25% of its current output by 2025 to a solution that could critically improve safety, radically enhance productivity and quality but also create new expertise with the potential to be a big export opportunity.

Click here for more details on the 25% by 2025 report.