2026 WINNERS
DESIGN INNOVATION
WINNER: MYNYDD ISA CAMPUS – DELIVERING NET-ZERO IN OPERATION SCHOOL CAMPUS | ARUP/IESVE
Arup used IESVE’s dynamic, physics-based simulation capability to enable parametric testing of glazing, air tightness, ventilation strategies, heating/cooling loads and integration of more than 1,000 solar panels. The platform modelled unregulated energy uses, future climate files and occupant behaviour sensitivity. The campus opened last year with a Brie-Am ‘Excellent’ rating.
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICE
WINNER: PROJECT COLIN: RETHINKING THE APPROACH TO DOCUMENTATION | RLB DIGITAL
RLB Digital’s Project Colin addresses the elephant in the room: traditionally, documents are created as large, disconnected files. This fragmentation leads to duplication, inconsistency, and information that’s hard to find, trust, or maintain.
With Project Colin, the process starts with individual pieces of information that are combined to produce O&M, and health and safety files. Each piece of information exists only once, but is reused many times. This eliminates duplication across structured and unstructured formats and clarifies what the information is, so it’s not provided twice.
DIGITAL TEAM OF THE YEAR
WINNER: HEATHROW AIRPORT | DIGITAL ASSET DELIVERY
Heathrow has addressed its information management challenges – challenges heightened by the sheer size of the airport and the number of projects being delivered at any one time. The team understood the challenges from across its supply chain, built a roadmap to help deliver data-driven decisions, instituted a new CDE, rolled out pilots and met resistance with benefits-led demonstrations. Around 90 projects have adopted the new approach with a total of £6.7m in productivity benefits.
BEST USE OF AI
WINNER: NAVLIVE
NavLive’s handheld scanner integrates AI, LiDAR and high-resolution photography, processed on-device via a proprietary algorithm. Using edge computing, the system processes camera imagery in real-time to detect and classify objects such as walls, windows and doors. These objects are then integrated into an AI-generated floorplan. Deep learning is applied to the point cloud data.
The resulting floorplan can be exported directly into major CAD applications.
DIGITAL INNOVATION IN HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELLBEING
WINNER: QUIN POD, APP AND TAG | QUINTESSENTIAL DESIGN
Quintessential Design has turned ordinary PPE into active, data‑driven safety networks. Motion and impact sensors in the Quin Pod detect slips, trips, falls or collisions. When a significant event occurs, the pod alerts emergency contacts and transmits location, severity and condition data. The Quin Within app logs each event, provides analytics and highlights risk patterns for site‑wide safety improvements.
The Quin Tag stores essential medical and contact information, readable via NFC even if the wearer is unconscious.
ASSET MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICE
WINNER: DIGITAL TWINS FOR EDUCATION ESTATE MANAGEMENT | ONE CREATIVE ENVIRONMENTS/PLYMOUTH CAST
Plymouth CAST multi-academy trust faced operational inefficiencies and was under pressure to meet net-zero targets. ONE Creative Environments identified that the key to solving these challenges was a strategic and human-centred approach to digital transformation. By combining digital twin technology with clear information requirements and a co-created delivery model, ONE redefined how an education trust could manage, maintain and future-proof its estate.
DIGITAL RISING STAR OF THE YEAR
WINNER: EMINE RACHEL TAYLOR-UNLU | BALFOUR BEATTY VINCI
Emine is assistant information manager at BBV and has successfully led the planning and execution of a critical Business Collaborator server migration for HS2 Area North – a highly complex task involving the transfer of 10 million uploads across nine delivery teams, impacting 300 organisations and 10,000 users. Her work has set new benchmarks for efficiency and digital excellence in one of the UK’s most complex infrastructure projects.
DIGITAL INNOVATION IN PRODUCTIVITY
WINNER: HINKLEY POINT C WORKPACKS: A NUCLEAR BOOST FOR PRODUCTIVITY | BYLOR JV (BOUYGUES TRAVAUX PUBLICS AND LAING O’ROURKE)
The heat sink pump house at Hinkley Point C required more than 4,000 concrete pours. Its complex geometry, limited access and the need for strict quality and traceability made traditional material-tracking methods impractical. Thus, BYLOR built an in-house ‘workpacks’ system to combine geometric data, embedded-item lists, consumable inventories and orientation images into a single, standardised package for each element. Lifting operations and trailer movements were cut by 83% each.
DIGITAL CONSULTANCY OF THE YEAR
WINNER: DRONE SURVEYING
Drone Surveying addresses the challenges that housebuilders face in maintaining accurate earthworks and material management. It provides a digital, drone-based survey and consultancy service that uses photogrammetry and a secure online portal to capture, analyse and manage earthworks data.
Among Drone Surveying’s clients, stockpile measurements are now accurate to within plus or minus 2%, compared with manual survey tolerances of up to plus or minus 15%. Survey turnaround has been reduced from several days to under 24 hours.
PRODUCT INNOVATION OF THE YEAR
WINNER: AURO DOOR | HARMONY FIRE
Harmony Fire developed a fully integrated, IoT-enabled and certified fire door system that provides real-time, 24/7 compliance monitoring. Auro Door embeds a long‑life, battery‑powered suite of sensors within doors that measure gap, swing and drop, and detect slams and abnormal motion. Upon installation, the sensor self-validates the door’s tolerance. The door cannot be signed off until this check passes. Continuous data is streamed to Auro Door’s dashboard, triggering instant alerts for deviations, prolonged inactivity or forced entry.
DELIVERING SUSTAINABILITY WITH DIGITAL INNOVATION
WINNER: HALVE THE HALF: THE NO- AND LOW-COST OPPORTUNITY TO REDUCE COST AND CARBON | CARDIFF METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
Cardiff Met needed an immediate, low‑cost way to cut out‑of‑hours energy use. The team had to use only the controls and the data – automated meter reading data – that were already available. The data was analysed in lightweight Excel models; and visualisations highlighted the worst performers. An energy manager then took action – reseting BMS schedules or fixing rogue timers, for example. Changes were verified instantly against the same AMR feed, allowing rapid iteration. During the academic year to 31 July 2025, gas use fell by 22.3%, electricity by 7.5% and water by 11.3% compared to the previous year.
BEST APPLICATION OF TECHNOLOGY
WINNER: TRANSFORMING NUCLEAR SAFETY THROUGH DIGITAL INTEGRATION | ATKINSRÉALIS/SELLAFIELD
Sellafield, one of the UK’s most complex nuclear sites, wanted to demonstrate real-time visibility, integrated emergency response and collaborative tools.
In response, AtkinsRéalis – with robotics manufacturer ICE9 and sensor tech specialist Createc – built Industry X: a demonstrator that fuses IoT sensors, robotics, AI and cloud services into a single Azure-hosted web platform. It could save Sellafeld £130m a year.
DIGITAL COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR
WINNER: UNITED UTILITIES ENTERPRISE/IAND | TRANSFORMING SUPPLIER ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
UUE is delivering £3bn of United Utilities’s AMP8 programme in north-west England. To manage the scale of the project, UUE brought together eight delivery partners and more than 300 suppliers into a single digital ecosystem powered by the IAND platform. Thanks to the platform, 90% of onboarding and compliance tasks are now automated, saving 90 days of effort. Duplicated documentation has been eliminated, and real-time visibility of spend and supplier performance has enabled proactive risk management and aligned decision-making across all partners.
DIGITAL CONTRACTOR OF THE YEAR
WINNER: MCLAREN CONSTRUCTION
McLaren’s digital information management team developed an internal project management application, the Project Control Plan to support a drive for improved efficiency via a standardised approach to project delivery.
The Plan serves as the principal document for the management of all McLaren projects from tender to handover. It identifies overarching strategies to be adopted and articulated regarding communication, responsibilities and accountability and risk management.
When fully deployed across McLaren’s project portfolio, the plan is expected to generate annual savings of circa £1m.
DIGITAL CONSTRUCTION CHAMPION OF THE YEAR
WINNER: DR ANNE KEMP OBE
Our champion wears a number of hats, and it’s two hats in particular that this award reflects.
The very standards that define this sector, the concepts and processes by which the sector measures itself – our champion has oversight of those.
Indeed, they’ve had oversight for more than a decade: our champion has been the convenor of the ISO 19650 standards suite since 2015.
As well as overseeing those standards, our champion chairs nima. They’ve been at the helm of nima since the inception of its previous life as the UK BIM Alliance in the summer of 2016.
Our champion’s passion for information management’s ability to empower and drive change in construction feels like a personal – not just professional – mission.
Our champion is also: the data and digital lead on the Construction Leadership Council, a strategic advisor to BuildingSmart UK & Ireland, and a director and fellow at AtkinsRealis.
In 2019, they were awarded an OBE for their significant contribution to the UK’s programme to deliver a smart digital economy for the built environment.
Our champion is always direct, always clear and always wants the best for construction.
In nominating our champion, one digital construction professional wrote: “They get the bigger picture/blue-sky thinking around information management, but they’re also a realist and understand that best practice and its value needs to be communicated to – and adopted by – as many players in the built and managed environment as possible, not just major clients and tier one contractors. Their passion and pragmatism is crucial.”
Perhaps occasionally glancing at the trophy will be a source of energy and further motivation later this year as they tackle the unenviable task of reaching a consensus from thousands of comments on the 19650 revisions.
DIGITAL CONSTRUCTION PROJECT OF THE YEAR
WINNER: THE STEPHEN A. SCHWARZMAN CENTRE FOR THE HUMANITIES – OXFORD UNIVERSITY | LAING O’ROURKE
A key technical challenge on the Schwarzman Centre involved the management of more than 5,000 B-W.I.C penetrations through fire-rated and acoustic floors and walls.
Traditional verification methods for BWICs are manual, time-consuming and prone to error, Thus, Laing O’Rourke implemented a digital-first strategy that transformed BWIC verification into a streamlined, automated process that linked 3D BIM data with onsite inspections and handovers. This digital thread enabled real-time monitoring and decision-making, risk mitigation and quality assurance throughout the project lifecycle.
Laing O’Rourke’s approach saved more than 600 hours across the project lifecycle and helped avoid costly rework.