There are plenty of things in construction that we can’t control. Inflation, economic volatility, skills shortages, global supply chains – it’s a long list.

But we need to be much tougher on the uncertainty that we create ourselves.

New research from Currie & Brown estimates that uncertainty added an average 12.4% to construction project pipeline costs over the last 12 months – equivalent to almost $2 trillion globally in 2026.

That number is staggering. But I think the confidence figures behind it should concern us just as much. Only 46% of respondents are confident they can meet project deadlines and just 40% are confident they can stay within budget.

For an industry built around planning, engineering and delivery, that should make us all feel uncomfortable.  We will never remove every unknown from construction. But there is a big difference between uncertainty we have to manage and uncertainty we could have prevented.

Too many problems are still discovered too late.

A design progresses before the people responsible for building it have had enough input. A specification is developed around individual product performance without enough consideration of how the wider system will perform together in practice. Technical expertise is brought in after key decisions have already been made.

Then we spend time, money and carbon solving problems that, with the right people around the table earlier, might never have become problems at all.  That has to change.

At Marshalls Landscaping, we work across a broad section of construction – from major infrastructure, energy and utilities projects through to housebuilding and hard landscaping. The sectors and applications may be very different, but we see the same principle repeatedly: certainty starts with collaboration.

And that collaboration has to happen early.  Designers, specifiers, contractors, manufacturers and technical specialists all see a project through a slightly different lens. That is precisely why bringing those perspectives together before decisions become fixed is so valuable.

It allows us to ask some fundamental questions. Can it actually be built efficiently? Is the specification doing what the project needs it to do? Are we designing unnecessary cost or carbon into the scheme? Is there a simpler way of achieving the same – or a better – outcome?

This is where buildability matters.

We’ve seen it in other sectors, where moving the conversation from individual component performance towards whole-system performance can produce better outcomes. We see the same thing in hard landscaping. A paving product might perform perfectly well in isolation, but that isn’t enough. The real question is whether the complete system has been designed and validated to perform as intended.

Sometimes challenging a design early can reduce material. Sometimes it can simplify installation, remove unnecessary labour or reduce programme time. Sometimes it identifies a problem that would otherwise have appeared on site, when resolving it becomes significantly more difficult and expensive.

None of this is particularly glamorous. But it is how better projects get built.

MaDE (Marshalls Design & Engineering) brings our design, engineering and digital specialists together so customers can bring the right expertise into projects earlier, helping support design, engineering and specification decisions before they become fixed. The aim is straightforward: help make designs buildable, solve technical challenges earlier and remove unnecessary cost, carbon, risk and complexity.

Importantly, it isn’t about taking decisions away from designers or contractors. It is about giving them better information on which to make those decisions.  And that distinction matters.

Construction has become extraordinarily complex. No single organisation or discipline has every answer. I believe the businesses that add the greatest value in the future will be those prepared to share expertise, challenge assumptions constructively and work as genuine partners rather than simply suppliers.  Because confidence doesn’t come from pretending uncertainty doesn’t exist.

It comes from understanding where the risks are, getting the right expertise involved and dealing with problems while there is still time to do something about them.

We can’t eliminate uncertainty from construction.  But we can stop designing it in.

Written By

Michael Roden

Michael Roden is Commercial Trading Director at Marshalls, where he plays a leading role in shaping the company’s commercial landscaping strategy and strengthening its position as a trusted partner for complex public realm and infrastructure projects.

Read Michael's full profile here.