Introduction
The UK has long been a prized destination for international investors, with mature regulatory regimes managed by politically independent regulators, a robust rule of law and a stable macroeconomic environment. These regulatory frameworks have attracted over £450 billion of private sector investment in UK infrastructure since privatisation.
As set out in the government’s recent Infrastructure Strategy, this appetite for global capital remains strong, with investment of over £700 billion targeted over the next 10 years, across a wide range of sectors throughout the UK economy.
Role of the UKRN
Supporting investment has been at the heart of UKRN’s work since it was founded. Shortly after its creation in 2014, UKRN published an Investor Guide, covering five sectors (aviation, energy, telecommunications, rail and water) and six of its members (CAA, Ofgem, Ofcom, ORR, Ofwat and Utility Regulator NI).
Since then, the UKRN has worked to support a dialogue between regulators and the investor community, primarily through events and partnerships with investor associations (e.g. GIIA, LTIIA), the most recent of which was our investor roundtable with GIIA in 2025.
UKRN also support investment through the work of our Cost of Capital network, which seeks to increase transparency and improve consistency in how regulators approach setting cost of capital. This includes annual cost of capital reports, setting out the parameters and assumptions used by members in estimating the cost of capital, as well as academic papers and guidance on a methodology for setting the cost of capital, published in 2023. We are reviewing this guidance during 2026, including gathering stakeholder views through a consultation.
2014 Investor Guide
Cost of capital papers
Cost of capital guidance
Public investment landscape
Regulators play an important role in supporting investment and growth – both by directly engaging investors and through creating the conditions to give investors the confidence, certainty and clarity that they need to invest. They work alongside the range of other public sector institutions that help to deliver and support investment in the UK, which operate at varying levels of maturity (both of technologies and relevant markets) and geographies, as shown in the diagram below. For more details on these bodies and the roles they play in supporting investment, please see this document here.
The scope and remit of individual regulators can vary widely, dependent on the legislative framework that they operate within and their statutory responsibilities. This determines the role they play in a given sector, such as economic regulation (e.g. setting rates of return for investors, while ensuring affordability for customers) or conduct regulation (e.g. enforcing standards of business practices to avoid consumer harm).
Source: An introduction to the UK public investment landscape, HM Treasury (2025)
Sector profiles
The membership of UKRN cover a wide variety of sectors. Each sector offers a range of investment opportunities, differing in lifecycle, geography and types of financing and/or revenue models. We have created below a short profile for each sector, setting out the role that our members play and key contacts if you’d like to know more.
For more detail on specific projects by sector, please refer to NISTA’s Infrastructure Pipeline, which provides information on committed infrastructure projects in construction or under development, financed either by the public or private sector.
