What the Pipeline Is
The National Infrastructure Pipeline, maintained by the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission (Te Waihanga), is a publicly searchable dataset that tracks infrastructure projects across central and local government and the private sector. As of June 2025, it lists 9,200 projects valued at approximately $237 billion — equivalent to more than four percent of GDP in planned expenditure over the coming year.
Over half of that value — approximately $125 billion — has confirmed or part-confirmed funding. The pipeline draws from contributions from more than 120 organisations, including central government agencies, territorial authorities, and private sector owners. When it launched in 2020, it covered about 500 active projects from 21 contributing organisations. The scale of participation has expanded dramatically.
What It Tells the Industry
One-third of New Zealand’s construction workforce operates in the infrastructure sector. For firms in civil, structural, utilities, and maintenance contracting, the pipeline is the most comprehensive single source of forward visibility on where work is likely to be, what procurement approach it will use, and what the funding status is. Matthew Keir, who leads Te Waihanga’s pipeline work, describes the tool as enabling construction professionals to assess regional and sectoral project status for workforce and capacity planning.
The commercial sector — which accounts for 31 percent of national infrastructure investment — remains underrepresented in pipeline contributions despite that scale. Private sector project owners have been slower to share forward project information, which creates gaps in the visibility available to contractors and their supply chains.
The 30-Year Plan
Te Waihanga is developing a 30-year National Infrastructure Plan, due to be delivered to the responsible Minister by the end of 2025. The plan is intended to set a long-term framework for infrastructure investment priorities, sequencing, and delivery — the kind of stable, cross-electoral pipeline that the construction sector has consistently identified as its most significant requirement for confident investment in capacity and workforce development.
When complete, the pipeline expects to track approximately 24,000 projects throughout their lifecycle, providing far greater granularity on project status, delays, and procurement timelines than is currently available. For contractors planning equipment investment, recruitment, and subcontractor relationships, that level of forward visibility would be genuinely transformative.
How to Access It
The National Infrastructure Pipeline is publicly accessible through Te Waihanga’s website. Firms in the infrastructure and civil contracting sector should be using it regularly as a planning tool — both to identify opportunities and to understand the competitive landscape they are operating in. The data is updated regularly and includes project-level information on funding status, procurement approach, and expected construction timelines.
