National Highways Supply Chain Development

We are the government company charged with operating, maintaining and improving England’s motorways and major A roads. Our strategic road network totals around 4,300 miles – carrying a third of all traffic by mileage and two thirds of all heavy goods traffic.

We work to provide free-flowing, safe, serviceable, accessible, and integrated roads. Our network helps drive economic growth across the country, creating jobs, supporting businesses, and opening areas for development. We are committed to cutting our carbon footprint, and fully support government’s drive to achieve net-zero carbon by 2050.

Stop Press – National Highways Carbon Week 2026: Driving Net Zero Forward Carbon week – 13th to 17th July 2026  

Sign up for Carbon Webinars organised by National Highways below. 

Each year since the publication of our 2021 Net Zero Plan, our Carbon Week has provided an opportunity to share progress, highlight best practice and set direction for the year ahead.

This year, Carbon Week will be celebrating five years since the first publication of the Net Zero Highways Plan; reflecting on all the progress that we’ve made so far and the challenges that we’ve overcome together; and launching our Net Zero Highways Plan for Road Period 3, drawing on everything we’ve learned across our journey so far.

• 14 July, 10:30am to 11:30am – Corporate Carbon: Corporate Carbon: Powering Behaviour Change : Exploring our work to deliver net zero Corporate Carbon by 2030 and the deep connections between infrastructure, systems and behaviour change.
• 15 July, 10:30am to 11:30am – Construction & Maintenance Carbon: Construction & Maintenance Carbon: From Certified to Bona Fide : Championing the PAS 2080 principles that we must put into practice, to bring our net zero ambitions for Construction & Maintenance to life; and the new KPI that will drive our progress to 2040.
• 16 July, 10:00am to 11:00am: Road User Carbon: Road User Carbon: Charging Ahead :Examining our ambition for net zero road travel by 2050; the complex technological and logistical challenges that entails; and our unique role as a network operator – driving, testing and enabling innovation.

NEW National Highways Learning Pathway – PAS 2080 – a series of learning resources for highways suppliers – click here to enrol & access the pathway from enrolled pathways on your School individual dashboard

National Highways has a strategic objective to deliver low-carbon infrastructure and achieve net zero for maintenance and construction by 2040, and from 2025 we require our contractors and their sub-contractors to implement their own PAS 2080 accredited carbon management systems. This Pathway aims to provide our supply chain with a sound understanding of the PAS2080 Certification, what it means, and how to become certified.

The pathway includes a number of useful resources including a specific module for SME’s  plus a recent recording from a PAS2080 webinar delivered in Autumn 2025 as part of the Scheme Delivery Framework Learning Programme, this provides real case studies and examples from some of our supply chain members – each sharing their own PAS2080 journey, lessons learnt and the benefits they are realising.

Supplier Development System – measure your capability and unlock your national highways action plan

In November 2024 we launched our refreshed  Supplier Development System which has been accessed now by hundreds of suppliers completing the learning to build their capability.  This prepares our supply chain for effective delivery of the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3). It consists of a capability assessment for organisations to benchmark and build competencies across a range of priority issues. We invite all suppliers and sub-contractors in the wider highways supply chain to use this important tool to develop their business.

• In October 2025, National Highways introduced our modernised Manual of Contracts for Highway Work Click here for more information. View the Video by Mike Wilson, Executive Director,  Safety, Engineering and Standards introducing the Manual here
• Improving the quality of design and construction – Pause for Quality Campaign  View and Share the Pause for Quality Toolbox Talk.  National Highways is leading a campaign with our supply chain to renew our focus on improving the quality of what we design and its construction. View more under the Stakeholder Engagement menu below.
• In June 2025, National Highways launched the Network Occupancy web page and Controlling our Network Hub find out more here