With less than a year remaining in the current Assembly mandate, a new assessment of the Northern Ireland Executive has highlighted both areas of progress and a series of major economic and infrastructure challenges that remain unresolved.

Pivotal’s Running out of time tracker argues that the failure to agree a 2026/27 Budget has become one of the defining issues of the year. It warns that continued uncertainty limits the ability of departments to plan for investment, reform and workforce requirements, while also affecting business confidence.

For the North West, however, several of the report’s findings have particular significance.

Among the most prominent is the future expansion of Ulster University’s Magee campus. The Programme for Government includes a target of reaching 10,000 students at Magee by 2032, but Pivotal notes that this ambition is now under review amid questions over the long-term funding required to sustain growth.

Continued growth at Magee has the potential to strengthen the regional skills base, attract and retain younger people, support research and innovation and increase demand across the wider city economy. Establishing a sustainable funding model for that growth should therefore remain a central economic priority.

The report also highlights the continuing delay surrounding the A5, with the Department for Infrastructure’s appeal against the High Court decision ongoing. For businesses across the wider North West City Region, progress on strategic transport infrastructure remains closely connected to productivity, labour mobility, investment and improved cross-border connectivity.

Regional balance presents another challenge. Pivotal notes that Invest NI remains behind its target of directing 65% of investment outside Belfast, despite work to attract investment in areas including advanced manufacturing, digital technology and life sciences.

The issue is therefore not simply whether Northern Ireland can attract investment, but how the benefits of that investment are distributed. For the North West, building on existing strengths in advanced manufacturing, technology, higher education and cross-border collaboration provides an opportunity to demonstrate that regional balance can support wider Northern Ireland growth rather than compete with it.

There are also areas on which further progress can be built. The Executive’s draft AI Strategy recognises the potential of artificial intelligence to drive economic growth, while investment continues in skills and research for advanced manufacturing. These developments create an opportunity to connect emerging policy with practical regional activity: supporting businesses to adopt new technology, improving digital skills and ensuring that the infrastructure required for the next generation of investment is available outside Belfast.

Infrastructure constraints remain part of that equation. The report estimates that inadequate wastewater capacity could cost Northern Ireland almost £11 billion in lost growth by 2040, while planning processing times continue to exceed targets.

Taken together, the report presents a clear challenge for the remaining months of the mandate: move from ambition towards delivery.

For the North West, that means securing the long-term growth of Magee, progressing the A5, addressing infrastructure and planning constraints, improving the regional distribution of investment and translating emerging opportunities in AI, advanced manufacturing and skills into tangible economic outcomes.

The foundations for growth already exist. The priority now is ensuring that Executive policy, investment and delivery enable the North West to build on them.

Read Pivotal: Running out of Time | September 2026