Mace is a major British consultancy and construction company with a global presence. They helped deliver the pan-American Games in Peru, doubled the capacity of Keflavik Airport in Iceland and Expo 2020 in Dubai as well as The Shard, a new campus for UCL in East London and overseeing Manchester’s remarkable Town Hall.

Given Mace’s increasing global footprint and the importance of service exports to the UK economy they wanted to better understand the potential future export markets for UK construction as well as which countries may most benefit from a ‘delivery partner’ approach to major projects.

We created a bespoke index to assess around 80 countries across three pillars 1)  ‘institutions’, 2) ‘comparative advantage’ and 3)‘market scale’ beneath which sit 13 separate measures. Bradshaw Advisory’s economics and policy teams also developed new modelling about the potential of boosting construction exports as well as setting out key indicators of trends and the state of play of the construction industry today. 

Our research found that between 2020-2023 UK exports of construction services jumped from £3bn to £4.6bn, an increase of 53% - but if that growth could be boosted, our modelling for Mace estimates the value of export services in the sector could grow to £11.5bn, creating 142,000 new, high paying jobs across the UK.

For the paper we worked closely with Mace’s experts to set out the potential benefits of different delivery models, particularly focussing on the ‘delivery partner’ approach. The paper sets out policy recommendations and recommendations for industry.

Mace used the well-received paper as part of a global client engagement campaign as well as for engagement with UK policymakers.