Technology Drives UKWIR Pipeline Database Enhancement Project

A valuable database that provides water companies with insights into pipes for water and sewer networks is being overhauled. UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) has released an invitation for expressions of interest (EoIs) to revise its National Failures Database, to better safeguard below ground infrastructure in a transformative technological age.

The UK water sector faces complex operational challenges driven by evolving infrastructure needs. This is combined with the integration and scaling-up of rapidly advancing technologies aimed to meet those pressures. For two decades, the database has provided water companies and other stakeholders with valuable insights, collating decades of pipe data from water networks and sewerage, including material, diameter and cause of failure.

However, as technologies have progressed, so the database needs to respond to the expanded data and predictive analytical opportunities now available -accelerating data sharing and enabling better operational and investment decisions.

“Our goal is to provide a single, joined-up platform that reveals clear regional commonalities in asset performance; helping companies understand why specific infrastructure thrives in some conditions while failing in others,” says Olu Onifade, strategic programme manager at UKWIR.

“Ultimately the output and the outcomes will benefit the water industry as a whole. This collaborative approach allows us to share knowledge across the entire sector, supporting innovation with the supply chain and providing academia with the high-quality data needed to drive future breakthroughs.”

By integrating raw performance data with external variables like soil composition and complex weather patterns, UKWIR is supporting the sector’s move from reactive maintenance to proactive, data-led resilience. UKWIR anticipates the updated NFD will be ready in time for companies to use the results to inform business plans in autumn 2028.

Expressing an interest

UKWIR is inviting expressions of interest from within and beyond the sector’s ecosystem to bring new and transformational capabilities in design, provision, implementation, and ongoing support of a refreshed cloud-based collaborative data ingestion, analytics, and reporting platform.

There is a budget of up to £400,000 for implementation and initial delivery activities, with an annual budget of approximately £50,000 covering ongoing support, maintenance and associated licence costs. The solution is expected to remain supportable and adaptable for a minimum operational period of 10 years.

Submissions must be received no later than midnight on 23 October 2026. Following EOI evaluation, selected suppliers may be invited to participate in a formal tender process to help shape the future of UK water network resilience.

Transforming asset management

The newly envisioned platform will bring together historical and future data provided by approximately 20 affiliated companies to form a trusted evidence base for understanding the characteristics, performance, deterioration and failure of water and sewerage assets across the industry.

UKWIR chief executive Mike Rose explains, “We have been working collaboratively across a broad group of our members to bring this important and potentially transformational project to life. The partners we want to work with will reimagine the National Failure Database in a world of new technologies and advanced data, which includes renaming the tool to better represent its value and scope to our members.

“We are appealing to a diverse group of organisations, including technology companies, analytics and data science specialists, and engineering companies to work with us on this timely, critical project, which responds to the calls from government for proactive leadership in creating a unified system database and open data standards.”

The initiative is already drawing international attention, with utilities in the USA and Australia expressing interest in its development, reinforcing UKWIR's drive to establish a world-class standard for asset management.

For more information, please visit https://ukwir.org/ukwir-projects-open-to-expressions-of-interest

About UKWIR:

UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) is a not-for-profit company that facilitates and manages a collaborative, impartial, research programme for the UK and Irish water industries. Its mission is to provide the evidence base for the water industry to make sound decisions on behalf of its customers, the environment, and society.