Hello, and welcome to the first issue of The Big Build.

Every week, governments, regulators and big companies decide what gets built across the UK and Ireland. They announce it in documents few people outside the industry ever read, written in a language almost nobody speaks: gobbledygook. Reading it all yourself would take weeks or months. We read it for you and pull out what matters.

This week: what’s on the UK’s building list, who pays for it, what Ireland is spending next year, and what it all means for your bills, your job and your street.

The UK’s £718bn to-do list

A government body called the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, NISTA for short, keeps a running list of what’s planned across the UK.

The latest version, from March, has 734 projects on it, worth £718bn of public and private money over the next ten years. That’s a little over £10,000 for every person in the country.

Energy is the big one at £365bn, roughly half of everything. That covers new power stations and wind farms, and the cables, substations and pylons (steel lattice towers) that carry their electricity to the rest of the country.

NISTA has said it will update the list every six months. The last update came in March, and we haven’t seen a date for the next one yet. When it lands, we’ll tell you what has changed, so you don’t have to wade through all 734 projects yourself.

You pay twice: through tax and through your bill

Some of this is paid for with public money, which means your taxes. A lot of the energy spending reaches you another way, through your bills.

Somewhere on your bill is a charge for the network, the kit that gets electricity from the power station to your kettle or iPhone. When the grid needs upgrading, that charge is how it gets paid for. In other words, you pay. But you knew that already, right?

Last December, Ofgem approved £28.7bn of upfront investment in Britain’s high-voltage electricity network and the gas networks, part of a wider pipeline of around £90bn. It expects network charges for an average home on gas and electricity to rise by around £108 by 2031. Once it counts the savings it expects to come back, it puts the net cost at about £30 a year by 2031. That’s the £2.50 a month we started with.

Plenty of readers will feel they've paid for this already. Network charges have been on every bill for decades, and it's fair to ask why the grid didn't keep pace. Ofgem's case is that the network now has to carry more electricity, from more places, than it was built for. Both things can be true. The work is needed, and taxpayers are right to ask whether they've had value for what they've already paid. Look at the state of some older infrastructure and you can see why they ask.

One more thing, in fairness to the grid. If your bill went up this month, it isn’t the main reason. The price cap rose 4% on 1 October, to £1,723 a year for a typical home paying for gas and electricity by direct debit, and Ofgem put the rise down to higher wholesale gas prices.

Ireland’s budget puts homes first

Across the Irish Sea, the government sets its building money every autumn. On 6 October, Jack Chambers, Ireland’s minister for public expenditure and infrastructure, set out €20.3bn of capital spending for 2027. That’s €1.1bn more than this year, and about €3,700 for every person in Ireland.

This money is for building only, not for maintenance or running costs.

It’s one year’s slice of Ireland’s National Development Plan, worth €275.4bn between 2026 and 2035, and next year’s slice leans heavily towards housing and the things new homes can’t do without:

• Housing: €5.6bn, including €3bn for social housing and 11,250 new-build social homes.

• Water: €2.3bn for Uisce Éireann, Ireland’s water utility, €1.5bn of it for building. The minister says that will move more than 400 projects forward, including connections for new homes.

• Transport: about €4.2bn for building, within €5.5bn for the department as a whole, plus an extra €6bn over 2027 to 2030 for MetroLink, Dublin’s planned metro, which the Government says could make room for up to 120,000 more homes.

• Climate, energy and environment: €1.3bn.

You can’t sell a house with no water connection, no transport and no power, so a lot of the money goes on the foundations and plumbing first.

Irish households pay through their bills too. The energy regulator, the CRU, has signed off up to €18.9bn of grid spending by EirGrid and ESB Networks between 2026 and 2030. It estimates that adds about €12 a year to a typical home's network charges, or €21 if the bigger version goes ahead. This year's rise was bigger. The CRU puts it at around €41.25 for a typical home from 1 October, or €3.44 a month, while the PSO levy fell to €0.51 a month.

What it means for you

Your bills. The network part of your energy bill will keep rising. Ofgem's net figure for Britain is roughly £30 a year by 2031. In Ireland, network charges went up by about €41 this October, and the grid plan alone adds €12 to €21 a year. Swings in gas and power prices will still move your bill far more than any of this.

Your taxes. In the UK, the next key date to watch is 28 October, Budget day, when the Office for Budget Responsibility also publishes its forecasts. If the government squeezes or stretches what it spends on building, you’ll see it then. Ireland resets its building budget every autumn.

Your job. NISTA estimates the UK pipeline needs between 629,000 and 706,000 workers a year over the next five years, and more than two thirds of that demand is in construction. If anyone in your household is weighing up a trade, there will be work. Hard hats at the ready.

Your street. Expect some disruption closer to home: roadworks, new substations, gas and water repairs and, in some places, new overhead lines. If a big project is planned near you, there are stages where you can have your say, and for the largest schemes in England and Wales the government's guide explains how. Developers are encouraged to consult local people before they apply. They don't have to.

The short version

• The UK has £718bn of projects lined up over ten years, and half of it is energy.

• You pay through your taxes and through the network charge on your energy bill. For Britain’s grid upgrade, that’s about £2.50 a month extra by 2031.

• Ireland is spending €20.3bn next year, mostly on homes and the services new homes can't do without.

What we don’t know yet

When NISTA’s next update lands, what the 28 October Budget does to building budgets, and whether Ireland’s €275.4bn turns “into real projects”, as the minister promised. We’ll keep score.

If you want the day-to-day detail in the meantime, The Wire covers UK and Irish infrastructure decisions and contracts every weekday morning, and it’s free: gridteamai.com/wire-archive. And if you’re curious about what’s being built near you, have a nose around our live map.

Next week: a Budget special on what the 28 October Budget means for what gets built, and for your bills.

See you next week.

Anthony

Sources

1. Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (gov.ie), “Statement by Minister Chambers on Budget 2027”, 6 October 2026. Link

2. Department of the Taoiseach (gov.ie), “Government publishes updated National Development Plan”, 22 July 2025. Link

3. NISTA and HM Treasury (GOV.UK), “Infrastructure Pipeline update signals future workforce needs”, 9 March 2026. Link

4. Government Project Delivery (projectdelivery.gov.uk), “Updated pipeline helps the country build better”, 10 March 2026. Link

5. Commission for Regulation of Utilities, “CRU Approves Record Investment in Ireland’s Electricity Grid and Network”, 16 December 2025. Link

6. Commission for Regulation of Utilities, “CRU approves 2026/27 electricity network charges and reduced PSO Levy”, 29 July 2026. Link

7. Ofgem, “RIIO-3 Final Determinations Overview Document”, 4 December 2025. Link

8. Ofgem, “Energy price cap will rise by 4% from October 2026”, 26 August 2026. Link

9. HM Treasury (GOV.UK), “Chancellor letter to the Treasury Select Committee (TSC): Budget 2026 date”, 31 July 2026. Link

10. Planning Inspectorate (GOV.UK), “Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects: the stages of the NSIP process and how you can have your say”, updated 30 July 2026. Link

11. Office for National Statistics, “Population estimates for the UK, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland: mid-2025”, 1 October 2026 (UK population 69,483,900; £718bn ÷ 69.48 million = about £10,300 per person). Link

12. Central Statistics Office, “Population and Migration Estimates, April 2026”, 24 August 2026 (population 5,525,600; €20.3bn ÷ 5.53 million = about €3,670 per person). Link

13. ICE, “NISTA pipeline roundtable write-up”, April 2026 (”NISTA is committed to updating the pipeline every six months”). Link