Track Record
Upright Insight applies this expertise wherever clients need it most.
About Aaron
Aaron has specialised in construction price analysis since 2004, spending over 20 years advising national statistical institutes, multilateral development banks and major contractors on construction costs, inflation and international benchmarking. He began his career as a Construction Economist at Mott MacDonald, where his work spanned international cost benchmarking and first-principles pricing, before leading a data transformation programme for Turner & Townsend’s infrastructure business. In 2014 he joined the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, working within BCIS, progressing over eight years to Head of International Data. As Head of International Data, he held a continuous advisory role on Eurostat’s PPP survey and the World Bank-managed ICP, two of the principal international benchmarks for construction pricing. From 2022, he continued this work as Senior Consultant at PLANCO Consulting, securing the Eurostat PPP mandate through competitive tender and continuing his ICP engagement through direct appointment, before moving to lead Upright Insight in 2026.
Recognition
- Fellow, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS)
- Advised the World Bank on the International Comparison Programme (ICP) and its regional implementing agencies, including the Asian Development Bank (ADB)
- Led Eurostat’s Purchasing Power Parity construction price survey across 30+ European countries
- Served on the RICS New Rules of Measurement (NRM2) Working Group, shaping an industry measurement standard
- Consultant Technical Editor, Griffiths Building & Civil Engineering Price Book and Hutchins Priced Schedules (2023 editions)
The following case studies are drawn from Aaron’s career prior to leading Upright Insight.
International Cost & Price Comparison
World Bank, ICP Construction and Civil Engineering Survey
The World Bank-managed International Comparison Programme is one of the world’s largest statistical exercises, comparing construction and civil engineering costs across 170+ countries. As global advisor to the ICP’s Construction and Civil Engineering Survey, Aaron shaped the survey’s methodology and design from data collection through to final validation. A series of his recommendations on item selection and survey design have been formally adopted into the programme’s methodology.
Eurostat, PPP Construction Survey
Comparing construction costs across 30+ European countries is notoriously difficult. As project lead, Aaron led technical validation of national submissions and chaired workshops with national statistical institutes to resolve anomalies, work that continued across three successive survey cycles even as the contract itself moved between employers. The resulting price parities feed directly into official EU-wide GDP and living-standards comparisons, and Aaron’s validation work markedly reduced pricing disparity across participating countries over that period.
Asian Development Bank, ICP Construction and Civil Engineering Survey
Within the ICP’s Construction and Civil Engineering Survey, the Asia-Pacific region has its own methodological challenges: national agencies at different stages of data maturity, all needing to price items consistently enough to be genuinely comparable. Aaron worked closely with ADB over several years, chairing regional workshops to review data, resolve anomalies and clarify methodology directly with national agencies. This work reduced the region’s price disparity, measured by the standard deviation of Country Product Dummy residuals, across successive survey rounds.
Construction Cost & Price Intelligence
Public body, road scheme inflation allowance
A public body responsible for a major, multi-year road infrastructure scheme, valued at £1.5bn, required a robust inflation allowance to protect budget certainty from the outset. Aaron analysed the project’s cost plan and delivery programme, then built a bespoke cost index calibrated to individual work-package timing and spend profiles, refined through direct engagement with the delivery team. The resulting assessment set a quantified inflation allowance of £99m, giving the client confidence in its budget provisions ahead of construction start.
Tier-1 contractor, business-wide inflation forecast
A tier-1 UK contractor needed to manage inflation risk across its entire business, not a single project: eight operating divisions, each with different cost exposure. Aaron led a rolling five-year inflation forecast, producing quarterly updates and working with estimating and procurement leads to build a bespoke index reflecting each division’s exposure. The forecasts and accompanying briefing were used directly by the client’s executive board to inform business investment decisions.
Public body, long-term pipeline inflation forecast
A major UK public body needed robust inflation allowances to inform budgetary planning across its future project pipeline, spanning both the current spending review period and the decade beyond. Aaron led bi-annual five- and ten-year forecasts covering road construction costs, tender prices and output prices, each accompanied by market commentary. The forecasts were used directly by the client’s commercial intelligence function to set budgetary allowances.
Cost Modelling & Benchmarking
Griffiths & Hutchins, price book review and update
Griffiths Building & Civil Engineering Price Book and Hutchins Priced Schedules are two of the UK construction industry’s longest-established first-principles pricing references, rebuilt annually to stay accurate as labour, plant and material costs move. As Consultant Technical Editor for Griffiths & Hutchins Publications Ltd, Aaron led the technical review for both publications’ 2023 editions, validating and updating 17,130 individual unit rates in total: 6,153 in Hutchins, 10,977 in Griffiths.
Water utility, regional cost benchmarking
A UK regulated water and wastewater utility needed to demonstrate, with a fully auditable methodology, that its higher-than-average costs reflected genuine regional factors rather than inefficiency, evidence required to support its funding case ahead of a regulatory price review. Aaron benchmarked regional resource prices against the UK average, isolating the specific cost drivers behind the differential. The analysis identified an additional 3% funding entitlement, which the client submitted to its regulator as part of its price review case.
Water utility, peer cost benchmarking
Ahead of a major regulatory price review, a UK water and wastewater utility needed an independent view of how its costs compared with its peers, not just overall, but which specific cost categories were driving any gap. Aaron analysed the utility’s cost base at a detailed breakdown level against eight other sector suppliers, benchmarking its position against the sector’s frontier, median and outlier performance. The analysis identified specific performance improvement opportunities the client could act on ahead of its regulatory submission.
Get in touch
If you’re considering a construction cost or price-related decision, we’d be glad to talk it through, or you’re welcome to read more about our services first.