The Factory‑Built Future of British Construction

For more than a century, industries like automotive have embraced industrialised production methods by moving from craft‑based processes to highly efficient, technology‑enabled systems. Yet construction, remarkably, has not kept pace. Homes across the UK are still being built much as they were a hundred years ago: with contractors laying bricks in muddy fields rather than leveraging the precision, speed and sustainability of modern manufacturing.

At Reds10, we firmly believe that this status quo is no longer fit for purpose. The UK deserves a construction model that is faster, greener and more resilient and the technology to deliver it already exists.

The construction sector’s reluctance to industrialise isn’t due to a lack of capability. Robotics, digital design, and advanced manufacturing are already transforming industries around us. But housebuilding in particular remains dominated by a small number of major players whose market position leaves them with limited incentive to innovate.

At the same time, outdated perceptions of modular construction continue to act as a drag on progress. Many still associate it with post‑war prefabs that were poorly built, often temporary structures that looked and felt inferior to traditional buildings. This comparison is so outdated it’s like comparing a Morris Marina with a Tesla.

For more than a decade, Reds10 has been pioneering genuinely modern, sustainable and high‑quality modular buildings, manufactured in our specialist factories in Driffield, East Yorkshire. These buildings serve some of the UK’s most important public services including military accommodation, schools and facilities for the NHS and Ministry of Justice.

One project I’m particularly proud of is our award‑winning Imjin Barracks development: a highly sustainable, three‑storey living accommodation that shows exactly what industrialised construction can achieve at its best. Built offsite using advanced manufacturing, the finished building is indistinguishable from traditional construction, except it performs better, was delivered faster, and meets higher sustainability standards.

Industrialised construction isn’t just about delivering housing. At Reds10, we have been working with the government’s multibillion‑pound New Hospital Programme (NHP) to design and build a prototype inpatient bedroom that will form the backbone of the first wave of new hospitals planned for the next five years.

The full‑scale prototype, complete with ensuite and corridor, is now undergoing rigorous clinical testing to ensure it is perfectly optimised before the design is replicated thousands of times – over 3,000 bedrooms in the first wave alone.

This is the kind of systemised, data‑driven approach our industry needs: test once, refine once, repeat many times. It’s how you achieve speed and quality at scale.

We cannot continue to build the way we always have. The UK faces major challenges over the next decade: climate commitments, public‑sector demand and acute skills shortages. The answer is not more labour‑intensive construction. It is smarter, greener, factory‑built solutions that bring the best of manufacturing into the built environment.

At Reds10, we are demonstrating every day that industrialised construction is a highly employable approach. It’s time for the rest of the sector to follow.