UK Concrete Show 2026: materials, testing and low‑carbon design notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
The UK Concrete Show will return to Birmingham’s NEC on 25–26 March 2026 in Hall 17, bringing more than 170 exhibitors covering cementitious materials, admixtures, test equipment, pumps, volumetric and truck mixers, and digital monitoring solutions. New technical features include the Live Demo Zone for in-situ demonstrations of production, placement and finishing equipment, and an expanded Concrete Connect Seminar Theatre hosted by Susannah Streeter, with sessions on decarbonisation technologies, advanced carbons and lower‑carbon precast design. Suppliers range from Cormac Engineering’s Frumecar batching plants (30–150 m³/h, fixed and mobile, wet and dry) to Arrow kerbing machines and Betonblock steel block moulds.
Technical Brief
- Hall 17 location at the NEC concentrates all concrete supply-chain exhibitors into a single, walkable hall.
- Organiser-provided on-site parking at the NEC supports day-trip visits with equipment-focused site teams.
- Find Your Community area aggregates bodies including Concrete Society, ICT, IOQ, BAA and Structural Concrete Alliance.
- That hub enables direct discussion of technical guidance, certification routes and current concrete design and construction standards.
- Exhibitor mix spans materials, production plant, placement equipment and digital tools, allowing end‑to‑end process comparisons.
- Seminar themes explicitly target decarbonisation, digitalisation, regulation, productivity and skills, aligning with current specification pressures.
Our Take
With more than 170 exhibitors at the UK Concrete Show and 32 Materials stories already in our database, this event is likely to be a key launchpad for new UK-focused concrete products and sustainability solutions rather than just a networking forum.
Frumecar’s UK footprint of 11 batching plants installed in 2025, with outputs from 30–150m³/h, signals that medium-sized ready-mix and precast operators are actively upgrading plant rather than relying solely on legacy batching infrastructure.
The Emerging Talent Awards’ 30-and-under age limit aligns with other UK infrastructure stories in our coverage, where organisations such as the Women’s Engineering Society feature, suggesting that early-career recognition is becoming a standard tool to address skills gaps in concrete and wider construction engineering.
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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