With the general election behind us, the new government now has five years to fix Britain’s crumbling infrastructure.

The past 14 years have seen significant cuts to public spending, driven not least by the financial crisis, weak growth, economic damage caused by Brexit and lingering issues from the Covid-19 pandemic. The cuts have left no sector untouched, with the UK’s transport, communications and utilities all suffering from a lack of investment while demand for them continues to increase.

E+T asked Ed Almond, chief executive and secretary of the IET, how the next government could lean on Britain’s engineering sector to tackle many of these legacy issues.

Infrastructure

Earlier this year, the head of the National Audit Office expressed concern that the UK was wasting billions annually in taxpayer funds because of poorly managed mega projects, such as HS2, and crumbling infrastructure.

To tackle this, Almond is calling for improvements to the procurement process to focus on “outcomes...