The infrastructure sector is under growing pressure to deliver more complex projects faster, more efficiently, and with lower environmental impact. At its core, the industry faces a structural productivity problem: fragmented delivery models, slow decision-making, and limited integration of data into construction workflows.
Construction output grew just 0.5% in 2024, against economy-wide GDP growth of 0.9%, while the sector shed 63,700 workers even as vacancies rose. The industry also needs to recruit around 47,860 additional workers per year through to 2029 simply to meet forecast demand.[1]
The gap between what is being asked of the sector and the capacity of traditional delivery models to meet that demand is widening. UK construction output reached £215.7bn in 2024 and is forecast to grow at an average of 2.1% per year through to 2029.[2]
Technologies capable of reshaping how infrastructure is designed, delivered, and maintained, including AI-enabled planning tools, digital twins, automation platforms, are increasingly being tested and deployed across infrastructure environments – not simply to digitise existing processes, but to solve some of the industry’s most persistent operational challenges. Investor appetite for construction technology in particular has accelerated in recent years.
UK companies in this Infratech sub-sector have raised £60.1m across 28 deals in 2025, more than double the capital raised in 2024 (£28.8m), and the highest annual total since 2021.[3]
Our investment focus
At Murphy Capital, the Future of Construction is one of our three core Infratech investment verticals. We focus on early-stage and growth-focused businesses developing scalable solutions that directly improve productivity, decision-making, and delivery performance across major infrastructure environments.
These include AI-driven planning and project intelligence platforms, predictive construction technologies, digital delivery and automation tools, industrialised construction methods, workforce and productivity solutions, intelligent asset management systems, and AR, VR, and visualisation technologies.
Many businesses still face significant barriers when attempting to adopt and scale new technologies: long procurement cycles, fragmented delivery environments, and limited opportunities for live deployment can make commercial traction difficult even for proven solutions.
More than capital
Murphy Capital offers portfolio companies more than investment. Backed by Murphy’s international presence across the UK, Ireland, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and an £8.2bn project pipeline, portfolio companies gain direct access to a live innovation environment that very few investors in this space can match.
That access translates into concrete commercial advantages at each stage of a company’s growth. Murphy Capital can act as a first or next customer, generating early revenue and a credible reference through direct procurement. Portfolio companies gain access to established relationships with major infrastructure clients, opening routes to market that would otherwise take years to build. Strategic scaling support spans leadership, governance, and go-to-market execution, drawing on 75 years of infrastructure delivery experience.
As both an investor and infrastructure operator, Murphy Capital is uniquely positioned to support solutions moving from early adoption to deployment at scale.
[1] CITB, Construction Workforce Outlook 2025-29, June 2025, https://www.citb.co.uk/cwo/index.html
[2] Ibid. Output figure of £215.7bn is the CITB recorded 2024 baseline; average annual growth of 2.1% is the mid-case forecast for 2025-2029.
[3] Data from Beauhurst Insights, collected on 29 May 2026.
Building the next phase of infrastructure delivery
The opportunity ahead is not simply about adopting new tools. It is about solving some of the sector’s most persistent delivery challenges while improving productivity, resilience, sustainability, and long-term operational performance.
Murphy Capital is focused on backing businesses developing solutions capable of improving how infrastructure is delivered, operated, and maintained.
Further insight into the construction technologies, investment activity, and innovation trends transforming infrastructure delivery will be explored in Murphy Capital’s forthcoming report with Beauhurst Insights.
To learn more about Murphy Capital and our Future of Construction investment focus, visit here.