Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline 2026

Foreword

Infrastructure is essential to Scotland’s health, economy and environment. It underpins the crucial public services that people rely on every day.

To deliver best value from our infrastructure investments we must make smart, strategic choices: renewing and right-sizing our asset base, investing in prevention, and leveraging private investment where appropriate. This infrastructure pipeline sets out how we will do this in the next four financial years from April 2026 to March 2030, underpinned by over £30 billion of capital funding set out in the Scottish Spending Review.

Working with industry partners, we will deliver this new pipeline of investments in Scotland’s infrastructure. The pipeline reflects our ambitions for Scotland, driving the growth and development our country needs. It sets out specific investment plans totalling £11.1 billion, as well as our plans to develop new revenue-financed programmes of investment. More projects will move into the Pipeline as business cases are approved over the Spending Review period. Planned investments include:

• supporting the delivery of 36,000 affordable homes and our wider all-tenure ambition by investing up to £4.9 billion over the next four years, of which £4.1 billion will be public investment, working with partners including the Scottish National Investment Bank to leverage additional private investment. This intervention is estimated to provide a warm, safe home for up to 24,000 children – a significant contribution to our child poverty mission and helping to avoid the use of unsuitable temporary accommodation;
• targeted investment across the NHS estate, improving resilience and enabling modernisation of both property and services. Our whole-system NHS infrastructure plan will consider need across all of Scotland, supporting continued safe and effective use of the existing estate and determination of longer-term investment priorities;
• £1.2 billion in renewing our rail fleet and ferry vessels and associated enabling works;
• progressing work to dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness;
• supporting justice and prisoner welfare through investing over £700 million in HMP Glasgow and HMP Highland; and
• investing in our natural infrastructure, with close to £300 million in peatland restoration and woodland creation.

Infrastructure investment is an enabler of economic growth. Our planned investment underpins productivity, connects communities to opportunities and supports long-term resilience in important areas like housing, energy, transport and digital connectivity.

This plan builds on a strong track record of delivery. Over the last five years we have invested over £3.6 billion in the infrastructure projects included in our last Infrastructure Investment Plan, and invested further funding through our infrastructure programmes.

Our major capital investments in that time have supported better connectivity. The Levenmouth Rail link (£116 million) in Fife has reconnected local communities to the railway for the first time since 1969. The Reston and East Linton Rail Stations project (£37.8 million) improved access to rail services in the Scottish Borders and reconnected East Linton in East Lothian to the national rail network for the first time in almost six decades. The A77 Maybole Bypass (£46 million) in South Ayrshire improved road safety and air quality in the town while offering more reliable journey times on the A77. The new Inverness Airport Station (£41.8 million) built resilience and additional capacity to make rail a more attractive option and encourage more people to choose this sustainable transport option as an alternative to the car. We have transformed our Active travel delivery system: in 2024–25 we invested over £157 million to develop and deliver improved walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure. Since 2011, the Scottish Government has provided over £65 million to support the development of public electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure across Scotland. As a direct result of this funding and increasing private sector investment, Scotland now has over 7,400 public charge points.

We have also transformed access to digital connectivity across Scotland by extending faster broadband through investing over £600 million in the R100 programme, which has connected over 94,000 of our most rural premises so far and delivered 16 new subsea cables connecting our islands to the mainland. We also successfully completed the delivery of the Scottish 4G Infill programme (£28.8 million) which has extended future-proofed mobile coverage to 55 rural communities.

Our infrastructure investment has also supported better services. Investment in the Golden Jubilee National Hospital – Surgical Centre (£82.5 million) in Clydebank has provided an expansion of orthopaedic surgery and endoscopy procedures. Delivery of the Parkhead Health and Social Care Hub Facility (£67.3 million) in Glasgow has brought together community health and social care services across different sites. The Oncology Enabling Projects have created a cancer assessment centre and oncology ward for systemic anti-cancer treatment at the Edinburgh Cancer Centre (£24.7 million), providing vital care and treatment to some of the most unwell patients in Scotland. The new Highland National Treatment Centre (£48.6 million) transformed the experience for patients undergoing a range of orthopaedic and ophthalmology procedures. The completion of the National Facility for Women Offenders (£85.8 million) in Stirling is driving improvement in how women are managed and supported whilst in custody, prioritising dignity, safety and rehabilitation. Our investments in the Bella Centre (£12.3 million), Dundee, and Lilias Centre (£13.6 million), Maryhill also help to drive this agenda. Our investment through the Learning Estate Investment Programme has seen 16 schools completed, and a further 15 enter construction since 2021.

Our investment has helped us to tackle poverty and keep people safe. Affordable housing is critical infrastructure and in the five financial years since 2021 we invested £3.5 billion. This builds on our long-term commitment to affordable housing which, since 2007, has supported the delivery of more than 141,000 homes with more than 101,000 for social rent.