Galliford Try infrastructure MD: delivery lessons for UK project teams
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on New Civil Engineer
30 Second Briefing
Galliford Try infrastructure divisional managing director David Lowery says the contractor is gearing up for a multi‑year surge in UK infrastructure spend across highways, water and energy sectors, stressing the need to tighten project delivery. He points to a growing pipeline under the Road Investment Strategy and AMP8 water programmes, where complex, multi‑stakeholder schemes and NEC contract frameworks are putting schedule and cost risk under scrutiny. Lowery emphasises earlier contractor involvement, better digital design coordination and stronger supply chain integration as core levers to control interfaces and programme risk.
Technical Brief
- NEC-based alliancing is described as shifting risk allocation towards collaborative behaviours rather than strict employer–contractor silos.
- Digital rehearsal of complex beam lifts and possessions is cited as a routine planning tool, not an add‑on.
- Lowery stresses that temporary works and access planning are now integrated earlier into baseline programmes, not post‑award.
- He links programme slippage on recent UK schemes to late design change and unresolved third‑party interfaces, rather than pure productivity.
- Supply chain partners are being engaged on multi‑year frameworks to stabilise labour and specialist plant availability across peaks.
- For similar UK infrastructure pipelines, he expects more portfolio‑level governance of risk and contingency rather than project‑by‑project firefighting.
Our Take
Galliford Try’s recent role in powering a National Highways compound with a green hydrogen fuel cell suggests its infrastructure arm is actively piloting low‑carbon site logistics, which could become a differentiator in future framework competitions covered in our 876‑item Infrastructure database.
Securing places on both National Grid’s major civils framework and Sovereign Network Group’s £750m affordable homes framework indicates Galliford Try is spreading delivery risk across regulated utilities and housing, giving David Lowery more scope to balance resources and supply chains as the project pipeline grows.
Multiple recent New Civil Engineer pieces on Galliford Try’s diversity and social value initiatives imply that any push to ‘improve project delivery’ is likely to be framed not just around programme and cost, but also measurable ESG outcomes that clients such as National Highways and SNG are increasingly writing into contracts.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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