Sector-specialist, not generalist

Healthcare

Hospitals & NHS estates

Healthcare capital projects carry public scrutiny, phased and conditional funding, and safety-critical commissioning that leaves almost no margin for governance drift. Programmes above £300m already need HM Treasury approval, and above £1bn need re-approval at Full Business Case — so slippage isn't just a delivery problem, it's a funding and reputational one.

With over £44bn of NHS capital committed across the SR25 four-year period and the New Hospital Programme covering 46 schemes at roughly £60bn in total, the sector is entering a period of sustained delivery pressure (NHS England capital guidance 2026/27–2029/30; National Audit Office, Update on the New Hospital Programme).

How we help: independent gateway reviews ahead of business case approval, ER health checks against clinical and safety requirements, and rescue support where adversarial contractor dynamics have started to erode the client team, as in one of our case studies.

Science

Laboratories & research facilities

Science and research facilities are specialist environments where design, specialist plant and compliance requirements shift late and often — a change to a research programme can cascade into mechanical, electrical and containment requirements long after the design has supposedly been frozen.

These projects fail less often through poor construction and more often through requirements that were never properly locked down at the front end, then discovered mid-programme when they are expensive to fix.

On one government research laboratory, rebuilding design-team capability and coordinating demanding vibration, infrasound and electromagnetic-isolation requirements through delivery meant the facility achieved its required performance at handover.

How we help: Employer's Requirements health checks that catch drift between what was specified and what's being built, and programme assurance reviews that give sponsors an honest read on delivery confidence before it becomes a budget conversation.

Pharma

Manufacturing & GMP facilities

Pharmaceutical manufacturing projects have to be right before a single batch is made — validation, qualification and regulatory controls aren't optional extras, they're the reason the facility exists. A weak project setup at the start of a programme compounds fast, because governance gaps that would be recoverable elsewhere become validation and compliance gaps here.

We've seen this directly: on a global pharmaceutical programme, an independent peer review at setup stage found significant gaps in governance and project controls, resolved through a robust controls framework and a proper Project Execution Plan before problems could compound further into delivery.

How we help: gateway readiness reviews at project setup, PE technical due diligence ahead of facility acquisitions, and programme assurance that gives global sponsors a structured foundation from day one.

Data Centres

Hyperscale & enterprise builds

Spending on new UK data centres is forecast to reach £10bn a year by 2029 — more than four times today's £1.75bn — amid AI-driven demand, and the pipeline is continuing to grow strongly through 2026 (Data Centre & Network News; Data Centre Review). That growth means compressed programmes, contractor capacity under strain, and commissioning sequences that get more complex every cycle — where a late handover has a direct, quantifiable commercial cost.

On one live programme we worked, the absence of a defined commissioning strategy put an on-time handover at risk close to completion. Taking ownership of the handover process and building a structured approach retrospectively meant the project still handed over on time.

How we help: Commissioning Readiness Assessments before handover is at risk, not after, plus programme assurance reviews built for the pace this sector moves at.