What you need to know
- PAS 4010 came into effect on 30 November 2026. It applies to every role in the UK infrastructure value chain, not just clients.
- It sets no mandatory KPIs. Instead, every role must collect timely, reliable data on outputs, resource use, deviations from plan and blockers.
- You can't set a productivity baseline from a notebook. Keep it in the site diary, shift by shift, so the next project starts from evidence.
Twenty years ago, nobody on a UK site talked about near misses. Now every shift starts with a safety briefing.
PAS 4010 wants productivity to make the same journey. The authors put it plainly: productivity needs to become "as visible and widely understood across infrastructure delivery as safety has become over the last two decades."
From 30 November 2026, there's a specification to make that happen. PAS 4010:2026, Improving productivity in infrastructure development and delivery, was published by BSI and sponsored by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the Department for Transport. It applies to every UK infrastructure project and every member of the value chain.
Here's what it says, what it deliberately leaves out, and why it'll come down to the records you keep on site.
Why PAS 4010 exists
HM Treasury's 10 year infrastructure strategy, published in 2025, didn't soften the message. The UK has fallen behind France, Germany and the USA. It pointed to flatlined on-site labour productivity and a growing maintenance backlog that makes every new scheme more expensive.
The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) was set up to fix delivery capability. PAS 4010 is the practical framework that sits alongside it.
Who created PAS 4010?
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the Department for Transport sponsored it, and the DfT paid for it. BSI ran the process and published it. Mark Hansford wrote it.
The steering group reads like a list of the people who'll be asking you about it. Asset owners HS2, Sizewell C and Anglian Water. Contractor GRAHAM. Consultants Jacobs, Mott MacDonald and Expedition Engineering. Alongside them sat the DfT, the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, Lean Construction Institute UK and the University of Cambridge.
A PAS is BSI's fast-track route. An industry sponsor funds it and a steering group shapes it in months rather than years.
Here's the part most people will miss. PAS 4010 doesn't blame site.
It says a significant share of whole-life productivity is decided long before a gang turns up, in choices about need, scope, configuration and design. So the specification applies as much to the people who shape a project as to the people who build it.
What PAS 4010 means by productivity
PAS 4010 defines infrastructure productivity as the extent to which delivery converts inputs into outputs and intended outcomes. It splits that into two parts.
Efficiency is turning inputs into outputs. Labour, plant and materials into metres of duct laid.
Effectiveness is whether those outputs achieve the outcome. A gang that lays 200 metres a shift of the wrong duct is efficient. It isn't productive.
Every improvement is measured against a defined baseline. That single word, baseline, is where most teams will feel the pinch. We'll come back to it.
The strategy for productivity management (SPM)
The heart of PAS 4010 is the strategy for productivity management, or SPM. Think of it as the productivity equivalent of a construction phase plan, except it runs from need identification to operation.
The asset owner or client owns it. The whole value chain builds it. It does three things:
- Analyses the drivers of productivity and identifies the constraints, risks and opportunities.
- Sets out a plan to manage the constraints and take the opportunities.
- Sets targets against benchmarks, then monitors and reports progress.
The SPM isn't a binder on a shelf. It's reviewed at least once at every life-cycle stage, and again when someone with a material bearing on productivity is appointed.
The productivity improvement hierarchy
When you look for improvements, PAS 4010 asks you to work down a hierarchy:
- Challenge the need. Is the activity, project or programme required to deliver the outcome at all?
- Assess alternatives. Could a different scope, design, delivery approach or material do it better over the whole life?
- Cut waste. Make the chosen approach more efficient, including reuse and circular economy thinking.
If you've worked to PAS 2080 for carbon, this will feel familiar. The biggest wins sit at the top, which is why a subcontractor isn't expected to question a project's need, but a client is.
PAS 4010 requirements by role
PAS 4010 is written as "shall" requirements, grouped by role. Nobody gets a free pass.
Asset owners and clients
- Set the baseline, including the data, units and measurement approach everyone else must use.
- Define measurable outcomes, targets and KPIs.
- Set a minimum design maturity before committing to procurement and to construction.
- Require a readiness review before passing each stage gate, including before construction starts.
- Tell the supply chain that productivity reporting will be reviewed "on a par with performance against cost and programme."
- Put productivity criteria into tenders, proportionate to scope and fair to SMEs.
Designers
- Challenge prescriptive specifications and over-design that add cost, material and carbon.
- Produce an indicative construction plan or sequence showing how the design is meant to be built.
- Keep a design-interfaces register to cut rework between disciplines and packages.
Contractors
- Plan collaboratively so every trade commits to the schedule.
- Declare buffers openly, each with a purpose, location and owner.
- Protect the critical path and plan for single points of failure.
- Run a readiness review before work starts.
- Use documented quality control that gives real-time visibility of labour and plant utilisation.
- Capture productivity data, share it with the client, and provide accurate as-built data to refine future baselines.
Subcontractors and suppliers
- Provide transparent, accessible data on performance and resource use.
- Monitor and record the productivity of their own method, product or material.
- Give evidenced feedback on construction methods before decisions are locked in.
One more requirement cuts across everyone. Industrialised construction (MMC, DfMA, offsite) must be assessed as an option. If you don't adopt it, you need an evidence-based reason why.
What PAS 4010 deliberately leaves out
PAS 4010 doesn't tell you what to measure. No mandatory KPIs, no national metric set.
That's a deliberate choice. The authors argue no single metric set fits every project, and prescribing one "risks distorting behaviour toward what is measured rather than what matters."
Instead, it asks every value chain member to do three things:
- Identify the key indicators of productivity on their project and how they'll use them.
- Use standardised measures where they exist, so results compare across projects and regions.
- Establish and properly use data collection and management systems to inform decisions.
Read that last one again. It's the requirement that turns a strategy document into real work.
Is PAS 4010 mandatory?
Not by law. A PAS isn't a British Standard, and this one will be reviewed within two years.
But client bodies have said they intend to write compliance into their contracts. The Infrastructure Client Group's Client Commitments for Productivity Improvement also invites members to adopt PAS 4010 and report progress every year. If you deliver for a major client, expect to see it in a tender before long.
Why PAS 4010 comes down to your site records
Clause 6.1 is the one to pin above your desk. Every value chain member shall collect timely and reliable data on outputs, resource utilisation and deviations from plan, and systematically capture blockers to productivity.
Picture a track gang standing down for two hours because the possession was handed back late. Today that lives in a supervisor's notebook, if it lives anywhere.
Under PAS 4010, that's a blocker you have to capture. It's also a constraint the client is expected to own, because the standard gives asset owners a "non-transferable role" in mitigating things within their control, such as third-party possessions or access.
The same record that supports a compensation event now feeds a productivity baseline. Miss it, and you lose twice.
Baselines need history, the same way a measured mile analysis does. PAS 4010 admits that some organisations won't have enough data to set one first time round. When that happens, it requires mechanisms to collect the data during delivery so the next project starts from evidence.
That's where Gather fits. Supervisors complete a structured Shift Record every shift: labour, plant, outputs, delays and what happened, with photos. Over a project, that becomes the output, resource and deviation data clause 6.1 asks for.
To be clear about the limits: Gather won't write your SPM or choose your KPIs. That's a client and leadership decision. What it gives you is the evidence those decisions need.
I built Gather because I nearly lost £20 million on the North West Electrification Programme. Our records were scattered across notebooks, spreadsheets and email chains. PAS 4010 is about to make that kind of scatter a compliance problem, not just a commercial one.
Five common PAS 4010 mistakes
1. Treating it as a client document. The client owns the SPM, but every role has "shall" requirements. A subcontractor with no productivity data is a gap in the client's strategy.
2. Building a new committee. PAS 4010 says productivity should sit inside existing assurance, stage gates and risk processes. A new governance body is more overhead, which is the opposite of the point.
3. Picking metrics before you have data. A target without a baseline is a guess. Start by capturing outputs, resources and blockers consistently, then set targets you can defend.
4. Reporting for its own sake. The standard says monitoring exists to support decisions, not to feed assurance. If nobody acts on a report, stop writing it.
5. Only sharing the wins. PAS 4010 asks you to capture the impact of failed improvement efforts as well as successful ones. That only works if people can report the truth without risking blame, which is why it calls for psychological safety.
What to do this week
- Get the PAS from BSI and read the ICE guidance that goes with it.
- Check your next tender for productivity criteria. They're coming.
- Pick one live project and try to answer this: what were last month's top three blockers, and how many hours did each cost? If that takes more than an hour to answer, you've found your PAS 4010 gap.
Safety became visible because someone started writing near misses down. Productivity will go the same way.
Book a demo to see how Gather turns daily site records into a productivity baseline.
PAS 4010 FAQs
What is PAS 4010?
PAS 4010:2026 is a BSI specification for managing and improving productivity across the life cycle of UK infrastructure projects and programmes. It was sponsored by the ICE and the Department for Transport.
Who created PAS 4010?
ICE and the Department for Transport sponsored it and BSI published it. A steering group including HS2, Sizewell C, Anglian Water, GRAHAM, Jacobs and Mott MacDonald shaped the content.
When does PAS 4010 come into effect?
It came into effect on 30 November 2026.
Who does PAS 4010 apply to?
All members of the UK infrastructure value chain: asset owners and clients, designers, contractors, and subcontractors and suppliers.
Is PAS 4010 mandatory?
It isn't a legal requirement, but clients have said they intend to include compliance in their contracts.
What is a strategy for productivity management (SPM)?
The SPM is the framework, governance and performance process at the centre of PAS 4010. The asset owner or client owns it, and the whole value chain develops it.
Does PAS 4010 set KPIs?
No. It deliberately avoids mandating metrics, but it requires standardised measures where they exist and data systems that inform decisions.
