Equipment hire company Hewden has released a report detailing how construction in the UK might look like in 30 years.

The '2045: Constructing the Future' report was delivered by futurologist Ian Pearson.

It has been launched today, 21 October, to coincide with the date Marty McFly and Dr Emmett Brown time-travelled to in the 80s movie 'Back To The Future II'.

The report covers industry areas such as futuristic building design, transport, technology and health and safety.

Key findings of the report include:

• The London Skyline in 2045 will have super-tall structures and a spaceport.

• Driverless vehicles will be the norm, with vehicles having a box shape to maximise on-street capacity.

• Builders will have super-strength exoskeletons creating half-man, half-machine workers utilising a range of attachments.


"While we're not all flying around in cars, there are a number of things, such as the use of drones, video conferencing and some of the physical structures that were portrayed very accurately in the movie," Mr Pearson said.

However, the report also identified that in the future looks may be deceiving

"Augmented reality will play a major role in the aesthetics of a building. It's likely that many buildings will actually be very plain, instead using AR to create visually appealing environments for those that visit," Pearson added.

Cities such as London are likely to change the most according to the report, with space travel and development of new cities within cities some of the major changes.

Pearson added: "The use of super-strong carbon-based materials will enable us to build incredibly tall structures, some even up to 30km high. This will make space travel more convenient and for major transport hubs like London, going into space will be a regular occurrence in 2045.

"A few of these structures may be so large that their capacity enables them to function as small cities in their own right, with all the usual city functions mixed within the same building.

"The acceleration of new technology has and will continue to be the biggest driver for change. As will look forward another 30 years we can expect to see a very different but exciting world."

To download '2045: Constructing the Future' click here.

(LM/MH)