Tackling design, time, cost and cash with fair contracts, prompt payment, and early specialist input is essential to deliver more homes, faster, safer, and greener.
As businesses, we’re being driven to do more – build faster, greener and safer, invest in the recruitment and training of the next generation, and prove competence at every turn. Of course we should, but the reality is that I don’t speak to anyone who doesn’t want to raise the bar and build not just buildings we can be proud of, but an industry we can be proud of too. Sadly, I speak to many who feel hollowed out by these demands – demands too often delivered with sticks and very little in the way of carrots. If we are going to fight for better, there is a hard truth we must keep repeating: We cannot shift the dial on productivity, sustainability, skills or compliance until we tackle head-on the four core risks that govern construction – design, time, cost and cash – and ensure we procure in ways that fairly share risk, reward investment and recognise positive behaviours. The evidence is stark. Our latest low and mid-rise housing report shows specialist contractors routinely provide 60 to 78 days of credit to much larger clients; retentions are frequently withheld and post award price cuts are disturbingly common. These are not victimless frictions, they are structural barriers to the outcomes policymakers and clients say they want.
Design
If design accountability is blurred and time compressed, defects and rework rise, programme risk increases, and compliance becomes harder to assure. Our Reading research found what many experience daily: risk is pushed down through amended contracts, design responsibility is muddied, and specialists are engaged too late to add value or to de risk buildability. We know this is a false economy. Early and transparent engagement with those who will engineer, integrate and install interior systems is the single best way to reduce waste and improve both quality and safety outcomes. Procurement must stop treating specialists as price takers and start enabling their expertise to shape deliverable designs.
Time
Programming and a lack of empathy in time allocation are compounding our risks. The housing report highlights limited pipeline visibility. Less than a third of firms get six weeks’ notice to mobilise. When appointments are delayed to chase price, the programme still expects delivery on the original dates, so time risk is simply exported to the supply chain. That is when corners get cut, supervision thins, and site teams are left doing the impossible. Realistic call offs and earlier, partnership-based appointments are not luxuries; they are preconditions for safe, compliant and productive delivery.
Cost
Competitive tension has its place, but a race to the bottom corrodes everything. We conflate cost and value at our peril. Our Reading report documented “regressive procurement practices”, postcode lotteries of bespoke terms and post award “value engineering” that is too often just retrospective price-cutting. If we want sustainable supply chains, we must restore the primacy of unamended standard forms, evaluate investment in people and capability, not just the lowest number, and reward the firms that carry the overhead of training, supervision and quality management.
Cash
If cash flow is starved, firms defer investment in training, digital tools and modern methods. Slow and inconsistent payment, withheld retentions and routine undervaluation tie up hundreds of millions in working capital that should be building capacity, skills and resilience. Late cash means late investment, late apprentices, late upskilling for the Building Safety regime, and late adoption of modern methods. Enforceable 30-day payment as standard, automatic release of retentions, and wider use of Project Bank Accounts where appropriate are not radical asks; they are the minimum for a modern industry. If people are starved, they do not tend towards a Dunkirk spirit; they turn on each other. This is what is happening here – we are cannibalising construction.
Change
This is not just about fairness; it’s about outcomes. Want better productivity? Stabilise cash and time, and you unlock planning, standardisation and off-site integration. Want genuine sustainability? Enable early specialist input so low-carbon choices are buildable and do not unravel on site. Want more skills? Give firms predictable pipelines and prompt payment so they can carry apprentices and trainees, not just contingent labour. Want stronger compliance? Use contracts that clarify responsibilities and align with insurability, rather than dumping unmanageable risk downstream. The Reading report maps the route, and our housing evidence shows the cost of inaction. This is our repeated message to all who will listen: procure for performance, not just price. Use simple, standard contracts; pay on time and in full; stop post-award chip away; plan call offs realistically; and weight tenders to favour those who invest in training and competence. Do that, and you will get more homes, faster, to a higher standard – with a greener footprint and a safer legacy. Keep rewarding short-termism, and we will continue draining the very capacity we need to deliver.
