The Common Ground project

The Common Ground project aims to enhance the value of ground investigation (GI) data for the UK construction sector by developing a national-scale geotechnical data service that combines geotechnical data with geological knowledge.  

Funded by the Government Office for Technology Transfer, the project addresses a major industry challenge: despite spending around £1.2 billion annually on GI, unforeseen ground conditions still cause delays and overspend, which is estimated to be 10 per cent of project costs or £120 million each year. Improving access to geotechnical data will help reduce risk, improve efficiency and deliver significant savings.

In partnership with Difference Engine, Phase 1 of the project focused on targeted market analysis and the development of a suite of pilot geotechnical data tools. Building on this success, follow‑on funding will now scale the pilot to a national data service. The next phase includes further market research and development of a go‑to‑market strategy to ensure we deliver an authoritative data service with the functionality that suits the end user.  

Benefits identified through the initial market engagement include:  

• pre-tender support for more accurate project planning  
• better GI commissioning decisions, enabling robust business cases and financing
• targeted GI drilling and surveys, maximising investment and reducing environmental impact 
• risk reduction, mitigating unforeseen ground conditions  
• innovation opportunities, fostering secondary data products and partnerships  

The knowledge asset underpinning this work — the BGS National Geotechnical Properties Database (NGPD) — contains data from approximately 200 000 boreholes, consolidated, validated and verified by BGS experts. This value-added resource will help transform how the UK construction sector manages ground risk.

The project builds on previous work such as:

• Project Iceberg
• DigToShare
• BIM for the Subsurface
• Construction Playbook (with the Infrastructure and Projects Authority)

If you are a user or producer of GI data and would like to be involved in the project please get in touch with the Common Ground team (commonground@bgs.ac.uk).