Recently Chancellor Philip Hammond announced a £31 billion fund to increase capital expenditure in the field of housing, research and development, and economic infrastructure including transport and digital communications. This fund has been announced with the pledge to ‘invest today for the economy of tomorrow’. Of the £31 billion, £11.5 billion is demarcated for housing, £7 billion for R&D, £4.9 billion for transport and £740 million for digital infrastructure to be spent between 2017-18 to 2022-23. With almost 37% of the fund demarcated for housing, this is a specific move to give boost to the UK construction industry which has been on a consistent recessionary path.

Post financial crisis, declining productivity in UK in comparison to its other trading partners such as France and Germany, has amongst other sectors of the economy also had an impact on the construction sector. An effective solution is in the form of automation which promises to increase productivity and improve efficiency, however it comes with its own set of challenges. An important question at this point is: how has the industry performed and what do experts propose on dealing with its most pressing issues?