Picture a world with main contractors operating on margins of 5% rather than 0.5%, architects liberated from repetitive product specifications so they can focus on design, and government procuring on best value rather than best price. This is the vision of the man charged with the £72m task of transforming the construction sector. Keith Waller, the new programme director at the Construction Innovation Hub, has a big job ahead of him over the next three-and-a-half years, leading a team made up of the Manufacturing Technology Centre, BRE and Cambridge university’s Centre for Digital Built Britain.

Part of the government’s construction sector deal and wider Industrial Strategy, the hub’s job is to bring the construction sector into the 21st century using modern technology. Waller has a clear vision of what he wants to achieve, but how do we get there? “That’s the £72m question isn’t it?” he says with a wry smile.

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