2025 was widely expected to be a year of visible, meaningful change for UK transport. Instead, macroeconomic uncertainty, fiscal constraint, and operational risk slowed momentum and introduced caution across the sector. Progress did not stop, but it became more deliberate. As we look ahead to 2026, the challenge is no longer about direction, but about delivery. This article reflects on what 2025 set in motion and outlines five forces that I think will shape UK transport in the year ahead, from digital maturity and organisational fitness to productivity, culture, and the evolving role of the state.
At the start of 2025, there was a widespread sense across the transport sector that the year would mark a step change. Reform agendas were clearer, digital strategies were maturing, and there was a clear portfolio of operational and capital change programmes to be executed. Many leaders expected the conditions for real, visible progress to finally align.
In practice, that progress arrived more cautiously than anticipated. Macroeconomic uncertainty, fiscal constraint, and geopolitical instability introduced friction just as organisations were preparing to accelerate. Capital decisions slowed and risk appetites narrowed. Transformation programmes continued, but with greater scrutiny, tighter gating, and less tolerance for missteps. Alongside this sat a persistent nervousness across the sector, particularly where reform intersected with operational risk and public accountability.
This did not mean that 2025 stood still. Maintaining service continuity under sustained pressure was itself a significant achievement. Important groundwork was laid. Long-avoided conversations about productivity, cyber risk, and organisational capability moved into the open. Transformation did not stop, but it did slow and become more deliberate.
There were notable achievements across the system. At a national level, the government signalled a more durable approach to transport investment, with multi-year funding for city regions outside London and continued commitment to long-term programmes across roads, rail, and major infrastructure. Rail reform maintained momentum, with legislation progressing towards the establishment of Great British Railways and rail services continuing to transition into public ownership as contracts expired, providing greater clarity on the future direction of the system.
Delivery milestones were reached across several parts of the network. HS2 completed its most complex tunnelling work between London and Birmingham and moved into a more visible phase of railway construction, while Network Rail continued to focus on safety, renewals, and asset resilience alongside progress on digital signalling and more disciplined portfolio prioritisation. In aviation, policy consideration of capacity in the Southeast was formally reopened, with both Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport progressing within clearer planning and strategic frameworks.
At a local and city-region level, transport authorities continued to strengthen operational capability and integration. Transport for Greater Manchester advanced bus franchising and multimodal integration, while Transport for London made further progress on decarbonisation, secured greater funding certainty, and continued delivery of strategic programmes. Across the system, the Department for Transport also set out a clearer, more measured position on AI, data, and emerging technologies, signalling a focus on building long-term capability rather than rapid deployment.
In that sense, 2025 became the start of meaningful change rather than its culmination. Foundations were put in place, even where outcomes remained incomplete. For many leaders, the year required judgement, restraint, and credibility more than momentum. It may ultimately prove more consequential than first impressions suggest, precisely because it replaced optimism with realism.
That realism now defines the context for 2026.
Public funding remains constrained and increasingly conditional, with sharper scrutiny of value for money and benefits realisation. Cost pressures have not disappeared, even where inflation has moderated. Labour markets remain tight in critical skill areas, particularly digital, cyber, and systems capability. At the same time, public and political tolerance for disruption continues to narrow, placing reliability, safety, and trust at a premium.
These conditions are unlikely to ease materially in the near term. The future of UK transport will therefore be shaped less by resets and restructures, and more by how effectively organisations convert the early movement of 2025 into sustained delivery. Against that backdrop, five forces stand out to me:
🛡️ Digital maturity and cyber security as foundations of credibility: Digital maturity is no longer a marker of progress, it is a baseline expectation. By the end of 2026, organisations will be judged on whether they can operate securely, reliably, and at pace in a digitally dependent and ever evolving environment. Cyber security will continue its shift from technical concern to operational reality, reinforcing that resilience is inseparable from service delivery. Data quality, ownership, and architectural coherence will increasingly sit with senior leadership, because failure in these areas now carries immediate operational and reputational consequences.
🏋️ A shift from transformation activity to organisational fitness: Transformation remains necessary, but it is no longer sufficient. Large, perpetual programmes are coming under pressure where they absorb capacity without strengthening the organisation beneath them. Organisational fitness is emerging as the more useful concept. Clear accountability, simpler structures, and faster decision-making will matter more than the volume of change underway. The most effective transport bodies will be those that reduce the need for transformation by investing in operating models and a workforce that are resilient, understandable, and able to absorb change without constant disruption.
🤖 AI as a productivity lever under sustained cost pressure: AI is becoming less optional and more selective. Under persistent cost pressure, tolerance for technology without impact is diminishing. AI will endure where it improves planning, supports better decisions, automates low-value activity, or reduces reliance on scarce expertise. It will struggle where it sits outside day-to-day operations or adds complexity without benefit. AI will not replace people, but it will increasingly expose organisations that rely on human effort to compensate for weak processes, fragmented data, and slow decision-making.
🚦 Rail reform and the test of operational readiness: By 2026, the focus of rail reform will need to shift decisively from intent to execution. If the expectation is for Great British Railways to be operationally ready by November 2027, then 2026 becomes the critical year for answering the hardest outstanding questions. What does day one readiness actually mean in practice. Which capabilities must exist at the centre. What must change before transfer, and what can realistically follow later. This will require accelerated progress on defining a credible, executable programme plan, even while legislation continues its passage through Parliament. Clarity on scope, sequencing, and dependencies will matter more than perfect design. So too will clear accountability for reform delivery across government, existing rail bodies, and future system leadership. Without this, there is a real risk that momentum dissipates into abstraction just as the system needs to cohere. In that sense, 2026 is less about structural completion and more about disciplined preparation. The success of rail reform will depend not on when legislation receives Royal Assent, but on whether the system is genuinely ready to operate differently the day after it does.
🧠Productivity shaped by culture and leadership, not just systems: Productivity is no longer a peripheral issue. In 2026, it will be unavoidable. Yet improvement will continue to disappoint where productivity is treated purely as a technical exercise. Sustainable gains depend on leadership alignment, trust, and clarity about priorities. They depend on cultures that reward delivery, collaboration, and learning rather than risk avoidance. Leadership teams will be judged not only on what they decide, but on whether those decisions translate into consistent action across complex organisations.
What may prove most frustrating in 2026 is that the barriers to progress are unlikely to be new. Across digital maturity, reform, productivity, and culture, the blockers remain stubbornly familiar. Decision rights that are formally defined but practically unclear. Accountability that is shared rather than owned. Overlapping initiatives competing for the same limited capacity. Leadership attention stretched thin by the sheer volume of simultaneous demands. A continued belief that structural change will resolve behavioural and delivery issues. Benefits cases that are theoretically sound but fragile in practice. Scarce expertise spread too thinly or drawn into governance rather than delivery. And a form of risk aversion that presents as rigour but often slows momentum without materially reducing risk. None of this is unknown. What is changing is the tolerance for it. Progress in 2026 will depend less on further diagnosis, and more on the collective discipline to address obstacles that are already well understood.
As 2026 approaches, the task for UK transport is clearer than it has been for some time. The direction is broadly understood and the constraints are visible. The question now is whether the system can translate that clarity into sustained delivery. Progress will be judged less by intent and more by execution. The next phase will reward organisations that can make choices, hold accountability, and focus leadership attention on the few things that truly matter. Where that discipline is present, change will feel tangible. Where it is not, familiar frustrations will persist. The future of UK transport will be shaped less by what is announced, and more by what is made to work, consistently and under pressure.
Bethany Johnson is Senior Director – UK Transport & Infrastructure Industry Lead at North Highland
This article was originally published in The Future of Transport on 31st December 2025.Â
Feature Image Source: The Future of Transport