HS2 Ltd reports steady 2025 build progress, with major earthworks, tunnelling and viaduct construction advancing on Britain’s largest live infrastructure scheme despite a leadership-led operational reset of the programme. Updated delivery plans are being phased in while maintaining work on key civil assets such as long-section bored tunnels and multi-span high-speed rail viaducts, rather than pausing site activity. For contractors and designers, the message is continuity of core geotechnical and structural work under revised governance and sequencing, not a wholesale slowdown.

Network Rail is delivering £160M of works over Christmas and New Year across England, Wales and Scotland, combining large-scale renewals of ageing track, structures and overhead line equipment with installation of modern digital signalling. Possessions will concentrate on key main line bottlenecks and junctions, with multi-day blockades used to replace life-expired assets and reconfigure layouts for higher line speeds and more reliable timetabling. Contractors will need to manage intensive access windows, complex isolations and winter working risks while handing back routes for the post-holiday peak.

NCE’s Top 10 most read in-depth pieces of 2025 span major UK infrastructure themes, from long-span bridge renewals and high-capacity rail corridors to complex urban tunnelling and flood defence upgrades. Interviews with project directors and design leads examine issues such as whole-life carbon in reinforced concrete, geotechnical risk allocation on large D&B contracts, and digital twins for asset monitoring. For practitioners, the list signals where peers are focusing attention: programme delivery under tight funding, resilience to extreme rainfall, and constructability on constrained brownfield sites.