The 10 year Infrastructure Strategy – What’s in it for tech?

20 Jun 2025 01:12 PM

On 19 June 2025, the government published its 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy. This strategy is designed to set the government’s approach to infrastructure delivery over the next decade and set out £725 billion in investment over the next ten years. 

While the government’s messaging focused on ‘social infrastructure’ in health, justice and education, as well as housing, there were notable announcements for tech. Below, we set out what was in the Infrastructure Strategy for tech, including those parts that techUK called for in our paper on the 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy back in February 2025.  

What was in the Strategy? 

The Infrastructure Strategy is composed of six chapters, as set out below: 

• Chapter 1: A new approach to infrastructure to drive growth 1 
• Chapter 2: Encouraging private investment  
• Chapter 3: Unlocking growth across regions  
• Chapter 4: Becoming a clean energy superpower 
• Chapter 5: Delivering high quality social infrastructure 
• Chapter 6: Improving the environment 

Many of the announcements in the Strategy were confirmations of plans already announced in the Spending Review and beforehand, including AI Growth Zones, an above-inflation rise in government support for research and development (R&D) and up to £750 million for a new supercomputer at Edinburgh University. You can find a full list of Spending Review announcements and what they mean for tech on our website.  

Major new announcements include: 

• Digital First: The government will take a ‘digital first’ approach to infrastructure, ensuring that digital infrastructure is embedded from the very beginning of the development process for infrastructure projects.    The government also cited the national digital twin programme as a case study, which techUK outlined as a significant benefit of digitisation in our infrastructure paper.  
• As part of the digital first tilt, the government cited examples of how this is being introduced into current social infrastructure projects. Including through: 
  • Up to £10 billion in NHS technology and transformation by 2028-29 to deliver 2% year on year productivity, an almost 50% increase in spend since 2025-26.  
  • In new digital and data services for prisons and probation, alongside AI and automation pilots to enhance productivity and to replace outdated prison and court digital infrastructure.  
  • In continuing to improve digital infrastructure in schools over the next four years, building on the existing success of the Connect the Classroom programme to improve connectivity, to narrow the digital divide, and enable schools to harness the opportunities of technology, including AI 
• Telecoms: The Strategy also explicitly recognised the role of telecoms in providing connectivity essential to life, leisure and economic growth, and will review the telecoms needs of other infrastructure sectors (energy, water and transport) as part of its commitment to digital first infrastructure planning. techUK called for both of these in our paper on the Strategy. 
• Infrastructure Pipeline: The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) will run the Infrastructure Pipeline, which will begin as a list of government-funded infrastructure and   construction projects and programmes being progressed and planned over a ten-year period, giving information about each investment with details of its schedule, status and anticipated spend. This is slated to be     launched in July 2025 
• Spatial Strategies: These are parts of a move to ‘spatial strategies’ that will look to plan both commercial and social infrastructure needs within specific geographic areas, in order to ensure the infrastructure  needed to support private commerce, public services and houses is constructed. The government will use this approach when setting out the requirements for AI Growth Zones.    
• Continued support for Building Digital UK (BDUK): the Strategy has recommitted the government to a completion of Project Gigabit by 2032 and that regulation promotes innovation and the growth of  alternative technologies, such as satellite and fixed wireless access, to reach Very Hard to Access areas. techUK recommended this diversity in technologies for connectivity in our infrastructure paper.  

Other important announcements include: 

Telecoms 

• A commitment to implementing the remaining provisions of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022, which techUK supported in passing. 
• The government pledged to conduct a review of the mobile market, which techUK has called for. 
• The government has also pledged to use its purchasing power, through public sector procurement, to show leadership on the take up of new services, including innovative 5G use cases in the public sector. This is something techUK has called for in our Telecoms Action Plan.  
• As in the Spending Review, the government has pledged to continue existing commitments on Project Gigabit, reaching 99% coverage by 2032, and the Shared Rural Network, with a focus on working with industry to target high-impact areas and coverage of premises and infrastructure. 
• The government will publish an updated statement of strategic priorities for telecoms to set out the government’s priorities for Ofcom’s regulation of telecoms and spectrum over the current Parliament. 
• There is a commitment to bring forward a more flexible permitting system for street works across England and consult on proposals to ease gigabit deployment for leaseholders in multi-dwelling units. 
• There is also a commitment to build a connectivity timeline for businesses and CNI to support the planning of digital infrastructure upgrades. 
• The government have pledged to work on the digital phone switchover with Ofcom and industry to ease the transition. 
• There is also a pledge to publish a call for evidence on changes to planning laws that could enable faster rollout of fixed and mobile coverage. 
• £41 million is also being provided to introduce low-earth-orbit satellite connectivity on all mainline trains, significantly improving both the availability and internet data connection speeds for Wi-Fi connected passengers. 

Planning reform 

The reforms below link to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill currently before Parliament (more on that in this techUK insight) 

• The government will remove the statutory requirement to consult as part of the pre-application stage for NSIP applications. 
• The government has enabled key commercial infrastructure, including gigafactories, laboratories and data centres to opt into the NSIP regime (as announced last year). The government will also direct projects out of the NSIP regime if appropriate 
• The number of Judicial Review attempts against a Development Consent Order will be reduced for meritless cases from three to one. The government will work with the judiciary to introduce target timescales to ensure legitimate legal challenges are heard promptly.  
• Relevant National Policy Statements (NPSs) for major infrastructure sectors will be kept up to date to support timely decisions on Development Consent Order (DCO) applications.  
• The government is also introducing a set of national policies for decision making to provide greater consistency in national policy to inform planning decisions. 
• The Office for Value for Money has also set out a bespoke approach to megaprojects such as HS2, Dreadnought submarines and Sizewell C. 
• While not specific to tech, the government have announced they will look to re-introduce a changed model of Public Private Partnerships where value for money can be fully displayed. The government has also made the case for public Financial Transactions, backed by a change to debt calculation that sees government assets recognised as assets and not liabilities, is claimed to release large amounts of government capital to underpin private projects (though there are few details as to how this will be deployed except through the National Wealth Fund, British Business Bank and the British Housing Bank)  

Decarbonisation and the environment 

• On energy grids, government has recommitted to energy targets of 43-50 GW offshore wind, 27-29 GW onshore wind and 45-47 GW of solar by 2030. This will be supported by nuclear power commitments (SMRs and Sizewell C). 
• There is a commitment to a Clean Flexibility Roadmap published this year by DESNZ, Ofgem and NESO. 
• Reform to planning will involve £500m to streamline the environmental and nature assessments. This will include reforms around the Nature Restoration Fund. 
• There is a commitment to invest in nature-based solutions and ‘green infrastructure’ funded through the £7.9bn investment programme.  
• The Strategy outlines that the Corry Review recommends how environmental regulation can be improved by setting clearer outcomes for regulators. 
• The government will also permit full cost recovery for NSI-related services to planning bodies and will work to introduce reforms through the Infrastructure Bill to allow Local Planning Authorities to set their own fees.  

Resilience 

• Climate resilience (alongside other risks) are mentioned and the strategy recognises the use of standards to ensure resilience. 
• The Cabinet Office will map the existing standards and assess if they are suitable, and this includes digital. 
• There will be a new Resilience Strategy and the Cabinet Office will work with infrastructure owners to assess the costs of meeting new standards. 
• New standards for resilience measures will be based on the latest climate science (currently 2 degrees and 4 degrees warming scenario). 

techUK’s analysis 

techUK welcomes the government’s publication of the Infrastructure Strategy. 

We particularly welcome the government’s recognition of the importance of a ‘digital first’ approach to infrastructure, as well as explicit recognition of the importance of telecoms to the UK’s national infrastructure, both of which techUK called for in our paper ahead of the Strategy. 

techUK also welcomes the Infrastructure Pipeline to be launched and operated by NISTA, especially the recommendations that this becomes a clear, live platform that can crowd in business investment. 

However, there were some notable omissions and errors in the Strategy. Notably, there was no help on energy costs, despite techUK members citing energy costs for two years running as the main barrier to doing business in the UK. The government also failed to recognise the potential of digital transformation in industrial decarbonisation and the lack of mapping and data for connectivity speeds for industry when setting out the forward connectivity timeline.  

The government also made a regretful error in claiming data centres were significant users of water. While we were pleased government cited a techUK report on data centres to support the importance of heat networks, this report pointed out data centres are not in fact heavy water consumers. techUK are collaborating with the Environment Agency which provides insights pointing to commercial data centres not being water intensive in England. techUK will be publishing a white paper imminently to showcase the results of a voluntary survey.  

Given the importance of data centre infrastructure to government plans for AI Growth Zones and public service digitisation, a correction on this detail is important in order to set the public record straight. The government should look to correct this in the written Infrastructure Strategy and publicly state that data centres are not heavy users of water. 

Overall, the Infrastructure Strategy gives a good framework for how the government intend to manage and deliver infrastructure projects for the next ten years. The pledges in the Strategy need now to be delivered in order to realise their full potential for the UK’s economy and society. For example, as techUK pointed out in our paper, the Infrastructure Pipeline cannot become a project wishlist, where most projects fail to come to fruition, as it will then cease to be useful to business to understand where to invest. Similarly, delivery requires government to work with Combined Authorities and other forms of local government to ensure that their Local Growth Plans take full account of the changes announced by the Infrastructure Strategy, particularly the need to plan for adequate digital infrastructure. The entrepreneurial state and Public Private Partnerships set out are also vague and require development. 

The most significant next step the government can take down the road of delivery is to complete their growth offer with the Industrial Strategy, scheduled to be released the week commencing 23 June. By showing how they plan to deploy these frameworks, the government can do much to win business confidence and facilitate the private investment necessary to bring growth to the UK’s economy. 

techUK looks forward to working with the government on the workstreams outlined in the Infrastructure Strategy, and we look forward to seeing the final Industrial Strategy, a full analysis of which will be uploaded alongside our submission and opinion pieces on the Industrial Strategy Hub.  techUK members can also sign up for our debrief webinar on the 27, where our expert panel will dissect the full government offer on growth announced this June.