UTILITIES | TRENCHLESS
ages and requires maintenance or renewal, or indeed replacement, and also how growth requires new tunnelling works. The market in North America is enormous and the requirements to keep what is there and add to that network infrastructure is only increasing by the year. This creates much opportunity for the trenchless tunnelling industry and there will be much to discuss at the No-Dig Show 2026, in Palm Springs.
PROJECT PIPELINE DATA Utility budgets have a sizeable proportion of spend on underground-related infrastructure needs in North America, which is different from most other areas of the world in that respect. According to the latest market analysis by GlobalData,
the utility sector has total pipeline spend beating all other sectors for infrastructure projects that require significant tunnel works in their overall budget. The spend in the water and sewerage sector
dominates tunnel spend in North America, according to GlobalData’s latest report - ‘Project Insight - Global Tunnel Construction projects: Q3-2025’. The analysis looks at all stages of projects, from early planning to construction. Given its market size, the US budgets far outweighs that of Canada; Mexico is not included by GlobalData in the North America categorisation. Combined, water and sewerage across North America
accounts for US$62.7 billion out of a total value of US$126.6 billion, or almost half. The closest sectors following are transport - rail and
road tunnels, respectively - with pipeline budgets of have budgets of US$42.4 billion and US$20.9 billion. A key step-up in spend in the water and sewerage
sector in recent years has come from the increase in spend of drainage and flood mitigation tunnel projects in many urban areas. Water and Sewerage took the lead in the course of 2025. Relatively, other parts of the world spend far less
on water and sewerage compared to North America - including in other developed economies. For example, in Western Europe the largest share of the
sectors is transport - especially metro/rail projects that include notable portions of underground infrastructure. Other regions are farther behind, relatively and in absolute spend. By far the leader in utility spend on water, drainage and sewerage tunnels, then, is North America, and within that region it is led by US. Proportionally, water and sewerage has a bigger share
of tunnel project spend in the US compared to Canada, where its ranks third behand transport tunnels of both types - road (leading) and metro/rail. Although far less in relative budgets, there is also spend
in North America on gas networks, part of which require underground works.
We’re not afraid to dig up fresh solutions.
UNDERGROUND HEAVY CIVIL ENGINEERING FOR Wastewater | Water | Transportation | Energy
34 | March 2026
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