Belfast entrepreneur Duane McCreadie has launched QualiT, an AI and human-expertise platform aimed at cutting rework and defects on construction sites, targeting a UK construction error bill that independent industry research puts at £21bn a year.

QualiT, founded by McCreadie, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building with more than 20 years' experience leading major UK and Ireland projects including Belfast Grand Central Station, Ulster University and Ulster Rugby's home stadium, combines artificial intelligence with captured frontline site knowledge to give contractors a repeatable quality process.

The platform lets contractors store project-specific decision records to maintain the "golden thread" of information required under the Building Safety Act, supported by step-by-step best-practice guides built with industry contributors, alongside AI tools aimed at planning, delivery and compliance.

McCreadie said early deployment modelling suggests the tool could save the industry £2.4m an hour by preventing avoidable errors and ensuring teams do not repeat the same mistakes.

QualiT's core premise, that error costs eclipse average industry margins, is well-documented rather than a marketing claim.

The Get It Right Initiative estimates avoidable error costs UK construction between 10% and 25% of project value, with a best estimate of 21% and around £21bn a year, against average sector margins nearer 3%, making error avoidance a major lever on profitability.

That gap is measurable in practice: a GIRI training pilot involving Kier, BAM UK and Ireland, VolkerStevin and Taylor Woodrow identified and avoided £92.6m of errors across 25 projects, close to 10% of the value being delivered, showing that structured error-reduction efforts convert directly into measurable savings.

Regulatory direction is reinforcing that shift too, with reforms such as Building Safety Act gateways and plans for a single construction regulator committed to interoperable data raising the commercial value of verifiable, front-loaded design assurance across the industry.

For the sector, tools that turn error reduction into documented, repeatable savings are becoming a genuine lever on margin rather than a compliance nicety, particularly as the Building Safety Act's golden thread requirements make project-decision documentation a legal necessity rather than good practice contractors can choose to skip.

Source: Belfast News Letter / Highways Today / Ground Engineering