IN Brief:
- Xpedeon surveyed 500 senior professionals in UK construction businesses with turnover above £50m.
- The census found widespread delay in final accounts, manual handoffs, and poor real-time visibility.
- The findings land against a backdrop of tight margins, heavy insolvency pressure, and stricter information requirements.
Xpedeon has published findings from its UK Construction Systems Census 2026 indicating that many larger contractors are still struggling to move project information cleanly from site activity into commercial and finance control. The survey, based on responses from 500 senior professionals across construction businesses with turnover above £50m, points to a persistent disconnect between operational records and the financial systems used to manage cash, margin, and close-out.
According to the census, 53% of organisations have experienced delayed final accounts because of documentation or data gaps, while only 13% report true real-time cost visibility without a lag between site activity and the availability of coded financial information. Xpedeon also says 57% still rely on manual handoffs before site records become usable in finance, and 59% have faced mobilisation delays linked to missing or incomplete documentation over the past year.
Those findings cut directly into the mechanics of project control. Delays in final accounts and retention release affect working capital, payment timing, and the ability to close projects cleanly. Weak confidence in live WIP and margin positions makes it harder for businesses to understand where jobs are moving off track, while manual transfer points between site, commercial, procurement, and finance teams create room for duplication, error, and dispute.
For large contractors, that is no longer a back-office irritation. It sits close to the centre of operational resilience. Month-end reporting, cash forecasting, and early commercial intervention all depend on records moving through the business in a form that remains structured, approved, and traceable. Where information has to be reconstructed late in the cycle, confidence in the numbers falls away just when it is needed most.
The survey also captures a wider reality of digital construction: the industry often has more data than it can connect effectively. Site teams may be recording progress, approvals, instructions, and evidence in greater quantity than before, yet still struggle to keep those records aligned with valuations, procurement positions, and coded cost data in finance systems. That gap between capture and control is where much of the delay now sits.
The commercial consequences are sharper in the present market. Margins remain tight, insolvency pressure across construction is still high, and output conditions continue to test businesses that carry weak reporting discipline. In that environment, poor visibility over cost and cash is harder to absorb. A business can tolerate fragmented workflows for a time, but the cost becomes more obvious when pipeline confidence weakens and every delayed release or disputed position starts to affect liquidity.
There is also a growing compliance dimension. More projects now demand stronger document control, clearer approval trails, and better continuity of information from construction through to completion and handover. On higher-risk buildings, the bar has risen still further, with the post-Building Safety Act regime increasing the importance of accessible, current, and well-managed records. A disconnected system landscape makes that harder to achieve, particularly where critical decisions and evidence are split across multiple teams and platforms.
The most revealing part of the survey may be that the problem is not described as a lack of software. Many businesses already have systems in place. The issue is whether those systems keep records connected as work moves from project award to close-out. Where that chain breaks, teams spend time reconstructing positions that should already be visible, and the financial effect appears in delayed cash, uncertain margin, and slower dispute resolution.
The industry has spent years talking about digital transformation through the lens of productivity, collaboration, and data capture. The pressure now is more immediate. Contractors need reliable financial visibility, clean supporting records, and fewer manual breaks between project activity and reporting. The companies that manage that transition most effectively will put themselves in a stronger position not only to report accurately, but to protect cash and control risk while the market remains unforgiving.
