CECA members were recently joined at a workshop by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to discuss pipeline health for the two sectors that it regulates, alongside key supply chain challenges and issues. Ben Goodwin, CECA’s Director of Policy and Public Affairs, reflects on the key takeaways in this short blog post.
ORR opened the workshop by explaining how they are delivering a series of engagement sessions with the rail and road sectors to create a better understanding of market conditions, trends and future challenges and opportunities.
Initial feedback from CECA members focused on the need for project and programme pipelines to be updated more regularly, with clearer and more consistent information about their procurement status. Allied to this, members reported how last-minute additions to the rail and road pipelines often mean that the market isn’t afforded enough time to adequately prepare for involvement.
Other CECA members reflected on how project and programme timelines can often feel aspirational, rather than programmatic, which inhibits the ability of contractors to recruit and mobilise people.
Sticking with the skills and workforce theme, there was also some discussion around the significant cost of market downturns across rail and road, whereby people and skills are moving across into the energy and water sectors where investment is growing.
The rest of the conversation focused on the following issues:
- Burdensome pre-qualification costs and the perceived unnecessary requirement for contractors to pre-qualify for future spending periods even if they are already working in a live spending period (whether that be a control period in rail or between road investment strategies in roads).
- The degree to which the rail and road sectors are open to learning from best practice in other sectors, which is often limited because there is a tendency for caution and convention around contracts, risk, and ways of working.
- The ability of larger contractors to be able to move between sectors more fluidly than smaller contractors, meaning that downturns in the rail and road sectors can more easily be offset by larger companies through pivoting into other areas of infrastructure.
From the CECA perspective there is an onus on the Association to ensure that we are providing valuable client networking and engagement activities to overcome the challenges that were identified and discussed in this workshop.
We will also be working with ORR to organise further market insight workshops in due course, and exploring how we can identify and develop the right policy and regulatory solutions to improve market health across rail and road.
CECA’s next online policy event will be with the Centre for Construction Best Practice (CCBP), who will be discussing the relationship between Early Contractor Involvement and cost and programme certainty, risk management, buildability, supply-chain input, sustainability and wider value.
This event is taking place on 27 October 2026 at 11.00am. CECA members can book their place(s) at this link.