CIHT – Building Capability for a Preventative Maintenance Future

Few would disagree that preventative maintenance represents the most sustainable approach to managing highway assets. By intervening at the right time and in the right place, highway authorities and their supply chain partners can extend asset life,improve network resilience, reduce whole-life costs, and achieve better value from limited maintenance budgets.

Yet despite widespread recognition of these benefits, the highways sector continues to face a significant challenge. Years of financial pressure, increasing maintenance backlogs and the need to prioritise safety-critical repairs have often resulted in reactive maintenance becoming the dominant operational approach. In many
organisations, opportunities to apply preventative treatments consistently and at scale have reduced, leading to a gradual loss of skills, experience, and
organisational knowledge about how and when preventative maintenance can deliver the greatest benefit.

At the same time, expectations in the sector are changing. The Department for Transport’s requirements place increasing emphasis on preventative maintenance learning. English local authorities seeking full Incentive Fund allocations need aroute to demonstrate continued professional learning, including in relation to preventative maintenance, before the 30 November 2026 deadline.

Supporting this need for greater capability, CIHT has unveiled Preventative Highways Maintenance Fundamentals, a new eLearning course for local authorities, consultants, and contractors. The course provides a comprehensive introduction to preventative highway maintenance, exploring the financial, legal and policy context influencing maintenance decisions and the benefits of moving towards a proactive, asset management-led approach. Learners are introduced to Highway Infrastructure Asset Management Systems (HIAMS), lifecycle planning, prioritisation techniques, and risk-based decision making, helping them understand how maintenance investment can be targeted effectively to deliver the greatest long-term value.

Authored by Matthew Lugg OBE, who is internationally recognised as an expert in highway asset management, the course has been independently reviewed by leading industry practitioners and developed in consultation with local authorities.

Reflecting a collaborative approach to developing knowledge and capability across the highways sector, the course is endorsed by the UK Roads Leadership Group (UKRLG) Roads Board and supported by the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport and ADEPT members are eligible for a 30% discount on the full course fee.

The programme is available through CIHT Learn, CIHT’s award-winning eLearning platform, and can be accessed at www.cihtlearn.org.uk.

With record CIHT Learn orders ahead of its launch in early September, the course attracted significant interest from highway authorities and industry professionals seeking to develop and maintain preventative maintenance skills. The online format provides flexible access, enabling individuals to learn at a time and pace that suits them and revisit content as required. For organisations, it minimises operational disruption and removes the need to wait for scheduled classroom dates, release staff for travel or incur additional travel costs.

Building workforce capability is becoming increasingly important if organisations are to maximise the performance of their assets and deliver the best outcomes for the communities they serve. Achieving the greatest benefit from future investment will depend on combining funding with strong asset management practices, skilled practitioners, and a long-term approach to network maintenance.

Learning and professional development clearly have an important role to play here. While many organisations already demonstrate strong asset management practice, knowledge and understanding of preventative maintenance techniques, lifecycle planning, treatment selection, and strategic asset management approaches can vary significantly across the sector.

UKRLG and local authority leaders have both highlighted the importance of building competence across the workforce to support more informed investment decisions, maximise value from available funding and improve long-term outcomes for highway networks.

Equally important is the need to move beyond viewing preventative maintenance as simply a collection of treatments. Successful preventative maintenance requires a strategic framework supported by robust asset data, clear objectives, lifecycle planning, prioritisation processes, and evidence-based decision making.

Organisations need people who understand not only what interventions are available, but how those interventions fit within a wider Highway Infrastructure Asset Management System and for these reasons among many others, a key element of the course focuses on developing and implementing a Preventative Highway Maintenance Strategy. Learners explore how asset condition, performance data, strategic objectives, and prioritisation processes can be brought together to support a structured and sustainable approach to managing highway infrastructure.

The course also examines preventative maintenance approaches across a range of asset groups, including carriageways, drainage systems, highway structures, footways, street lighting, traffic signals, and electronic traffic equipment. Wider topics such as funding, programming, delivery models, carbon reduction, sustainability, communication, and stakeholder engagement are also considered, reflecting the increasingly broad skill set required of today’s highways professionals.

The breadth of the programme reflects the reality that preventative maintenance extends far beyond the highway surface. Effective asset management requires consideration of a diverse range of assets and the interdependencies between them.

As authorities continue to develop long-term maintenance strategies and demonstrate asset management maturity, there is increasing value in developing knowledge that supports a whole-network approach encompassing carriageways, drainage, structures, lighting, and other critical highway infrastructure assets.

Preventative maintenance is ultimately about more than preserving assets. It is about making better use of public investment, improving resilience, reducing disruption, supporting sustainability objectives, and delivering better outcomes for communities.

As the sector continues its transition towards a preventative, asset management-led future, developing the skills and capability needed to support that transition will remain one of the most important investments organisations can make.

Courses such as Preventative Highways Maintenance Fundamentals represent one contribution towards building that capability and helping ensure that the sector is equipped to deliver the long-term benefits that preventative maintenance promises.

Find out more about the Preventative Highways Maintenance Fundamentals course at www.cihtlearn.org.uk CIHT Learn