Progressive Grounds

The cost of error in UK construction, and the part the board can own

By Ian Bester · Updated 14 October 2026

Short answer: The Get It Right Initiative (GIRI) estimates (2016, expert Delphi estimate) that avoidable error costs UK construction around 21% of total spend, and that only about 5% is the recorded direct cost [1]. Most of it never appears as a line item. A growing share starts with information: data nobody can find, trust or hand over. That is a technology-governance problem, and it belongs to the board, not only to site teams.

What "around 21%" means

  • GIRI's figure is a structured expert (Delphi) estimate, published in its research report Improving Value by Eliminating Error (2016) [1].
  • The recorded direct cost is only about 5% [1]. The rest is indirect cost, unrecorded process waste and latent defects: delay, extra preliminaries, disputes, lost margin.
  • It can be reduced. In a CITB/GIRI programme on 25 projects, error-reduction training avoided an estimated 9.83% of project value (participant-assessed) [2].

Where information error comes in

  • Bad data and rework (vendor research). A vendor-commissioned global study estimated that bad data drove 14% of all rework in 2020 (Autodesk/FMI, vendor-commissioned, 2021) [3].
  • Time lost to searching (US vendor research). In a US survey, teams spent 5.5 hours a week looking for project data, and poor data and miscommunication caused 48% of US rework (PlanGrid/FMI, US, vendor, 2018) [4].
  • The golden thread raises the stakes. For higher-risk buildings, golden-thread information handed over at completion must keep the filing structure it was kept in, with its indexes, in a format the building owner can read, keep and update (reg 38, SI 2023/909) [5]. Poor document control is now a legal-duty risk, not just an inefficiency.

The systems decisions behind it

The largest single technology decision a contractor makes, its ERP or core systems, can create errors as well as cure them. A tier-one contractor's ERP budget tripled from £30m to £90m, and £7.3m of it was later written off [6]. Those are large-firm numbers, not a forecast for a mid-sized firm. The lesson that scales is that nobody senior owned the decision end to end.

Cash makes the cost bite

Error and delay hit cash. Large UK construction businesses paid 14% of invoices late in 2025 (13% by value), with a median of 33 days to pay [7]. Applications for payment, valuations and CVR still held in spreadsheets make the gap between work done and cash received harder to close. As illustrative arithmetic, each debtor day at a £100m firm ties up about £274k (£100m ÷ 365).

What the board can own

Site quality is not the only lever. A board can own:

  1. One version of project information. A common data environment and document standard that holds from bid to handover.
  2. Systems decisions with a senior owner. The business case, supplier and benefits for ERP and core systems are owned at board level, not left to IT or the vendor.
  3. Data the board can see in time. Cost, programme and quality are reported early enough to act on.
  4. AI used where it reduces error, with controls. Not used where it hides it.
  5. A named owner for all of the above.

Where Progressive Grounds fits

We give the board a senior owner for the information and systems decisions behind error: document control and the golden thread, ERP and core systems, project data and AI.

Fractional CIO for engineering and construction firms · Core Systems Replacement Leadership · Independent Transformation Health Review

Questions

What is the cost of error in construction?

GIRI estimates (2016, expert Delphi estimate) that avoidable error costs UK construction around 21% of total spend, and that only about 5% is the recorded direct cost [1].

Is rework the same as the cost of error?

No. The recorded direct cost is the visible part, about 5%. The rest is indirect cost, process waste and latent defects that are rarely recorded [1].

Can technology reduce it?

It can reduce the share caused by information. Vendor-commissioned research links bad data to 14% of rework globally (Autodesk/FMI, 2021), and US vendor research links poor data and miscommunication to 48% of US rework (PlanGrid/FMI, 2018) [3][4]. Treat both as indicative.

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Sources

  1. Get It Right Initiative, Improving Value by Eliminating Error, Research Report Rev. 3, April 2016, p. 58. getitright.uk.com
  2. CITB / GIRI Productivity Commission, executive summary (2025–26). Results participant-assessed.
  3. Autodesk & FMI, Harnessing the Data Advantage in Construction, press release, 14 September 2021. Global, vendor-commissioned.
  4. PlanGrid (now Autodesk) & FMI, Construction Disconnected, August 2018. US, vendor-commissioned.
  5. The Building (Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures) (England) Regulations 2023, SI 2023/909, regulation 38. legislation.gov.uk
  6. Construction News, "Revealed: the £450m tech bill for the UK's biggest contractors", 24 October 2019, citing company accounts.
  7. Department for Business and Trade, Large businesses' payment practices and performance statistics 2025: commentary, sector table, published 14 July 2026. gov.uk