Build Britain: Why infrastructure investors need a new story

There has been much speculation about how the UK Government will "encourage" public and private sector infrastructure developers to Buy British, with some citing a likely change in procurement rules. Today, that speculation became reality.

This isn't new, the headlines have rolled for as long as the printing press. Just a few months ago Rachel Reeves used a visit to British Steel in Scunthorpe to encourage Ministers to "buy British" in four key industries. Back in the Great Depression a Buy British campaign was backed by a Conservative government. And last week, the Chancellor, John Healey, promised to "buy British of a scale never seen before."

Throughout the decades I have supported companies bidding for major public sector infrastructure projects, the need to show local content or community investment has been clear and constant. But let's face it, behind the spin, the main pitch for nationally significant projects has always been fairly narrow: capital, capability, delivery record.

However, in recent weeks under Andy Burnham and John Healey there is a clear shift in tone, and this time companies need to take heed. Those that do not adapt their communications to outline their commitment to UK jobs, supply chains and communities risk someone else, a select committee, a union, a competitor, or a journalist, doing it for you, usually at the least convenient moment.

Today's announcement: social value, stripped back and sharpened.

This morning, First Secretary of State Louise Haigh, Burnham's de facto deputy prime minister, confirmed exactly the kind of change many of us have been expecting. The Cabinet Office will soon publish a streamlined "social value" model requiring all businesses, domestic or international, to show they are creating jobs, skills and opportunities in Britain, and the vaguer criteria that used to sit alongside that are being cut away.

Social value currently accounts for 10 per cent of the score on government contract bids. Under the new model, that rises to 20 per cent for contracts worth £5 million or more, and jobs, skills and opportunities will carry double the weighting in how bids are assessed. Bidders will be able to earn extra credit for creating local jobs paid above the legal minimum and for offering genuine training, such as structured work experience. The simplified system will apply to contracts above £1 million, with technical guidance due this Autumn and the new model live from January. Haigh has been clear that the old approach, layered with conditions on everything from net zero to the environment to the high street, had become unworkable for many businesses and was, in her words, letting "certain players" game the system while smaller suppliers were crowded out.

There's a wider signal here too. Haigh and Healey are writing to every cabinet colleague this week, instructing them to treat public procurement as a strategic lever for growth, and to each identify ten UK suppliers with high growth potential to target for more government work. Ministers must back British jobs and skills not just "where possible," but by design, and treat it as a top departmental priority.

For international companies already active in UK infrastructure, energy majors, offshore wind developers, and utilities investors, this is no longer a background policy detail or a future possibility. It is now the mechanism, with a number, deadline, and named civil servants tasked with going out and finding suppliers who fit the bill. Being one of the ten names on a minister's list starts with being visible, credible and specific well before January.

What "commitment to UK plc" needs to answer now

With social value ruthlessly refocused on jobs and skills, the areas that will resonate with government sit slightly differently than they might have a year ago:

1. Youth unemployment and NEETs. The number of 16–24 year-olds NEET passed one million this year for the first time since 2013: an uncomfortable milestone for a government promising "hope" on jobs, and now directly rewarded through double-weighted scoring in government procurement contracts. Investors who can point to real apprenticeship pipelines and entry-level pathways, not just headline job numbers, are answering a question ministers are losing sleep over, in language the new scoring model is built to recognise.
2. Local jobs, paid properly. The new model gives explicit extra credit for local roles paid above the legal minimum and for structured training. Generic job-creation claims won't cut it; the detail on pay and training pathways now has a direct score attached.
3. Social care and the wider care economy. Large capital projects create sustained local employment and a tax base that indirectly supports social care and local services. Framing community investment in those terms still lands well with officials, even if it now sits outside the formal scoring criteria.
4. Ageing infrastructure and climate resilience. Grid, water and transport networks remain visibly under strain, and net zero criteria have been deliberately stripped from the social value scoring itself. That doesn't make the case weaker commercially, but it does mean this argument now needs to stand on its own merits with ministers, rather than riding on a social value tick-box that no longer exists.
5. Concrete, not vague, impact. Apprenticeship numbers, named UK supply chain partners, local spend and pay levels, all of it now maps directly onto a published scoring model rather than a discretionary judgement call. Generic "supporting the UK economy" language was already weak; it is now simply the wrong currency.

Three audiences, not one

• Ministers want a story they can cite publicly as evidence their plan is working: jobs, growth, security of supply. With each minister now expected to name ten high-growth UK suppliers, they also want candidates.
• Civil servants and procurement teams want proof, not polish: supply chain maps, UK jobs and pay data, and a credible account of how "British" the investment genuinely is, given growing scrutiny of complex ownership structures.
• Suppliers and the wider industrial base want certainty and fair treatment, clarity on contract access for smaller UK firms, and proof that "Buy British" commitments are genuine rather than a headline-contract exercise.

A message pitched only at ministers, all glossy, generic growth language, will increasingly fail with the other two, who have more day-to-day say over contract and planning decisions.

What good looks like, starting now

To deliver an engagement programme that resonates with all three groups, investors must:

• Build the evidence base before you need it. Have the proof points ready as reference rather than assembled reactively: local content, apprenticeship commitments, pay levels, UK partners, and community fund structures.
• Get ahead of the "how British is this, really" question. Be ready to explain plainly what proportion of value and employment genuinely sits in the UK.
• Speak to government's pressures, not just your project's benefits. Frame investment against youth unemployment and regional growth, since those are the areas now directly scored, while making the ageing infrastructure and climate case on its own commercial merits.

The commercial fundamentals of UK infrastructure investment remain strong, and this government wants international capital to help deliver them. But the price of entry has changed, and today it got a great deal more specific.

Natalie Buxton, Managing Director UK