Adopted highway
Work on a public road, whether new construction, maintenance or reinstatement. It is the most tightly governed setting: the specification is set by the authority, works on the street require a permit, traffic management is designed and approved in advance, and the work is inspected. Reinstatements are subject to their own performance standards and to a guarantee period.
Estate and access roads
Roads within a development. Where a road is intended to be adopted eventually, it is built to the authority's standard from the outset and inspected against it, even though it may stay private for years. Building to a lower standard and hoping to upgrade later is a false economy, since the layers that would need correcting are the buried ones.
Car parks and yards
Large areas with low speeds and, frequently, very heavy point loads. A yard where laden lorries turn and stand imposes far more punishment on a surface than a road carrying the same vehicles at speed, because turning scuffs the surface and standing loads it in one place. Falls and drainage are the other recurring issue: a large flat area with nowhere for water to go holds it.
Footways
Lighter construction, but more detail: crossings, tactile paving, level thresholds, gradients that have to stay within limits for accessibility, and ironwork that must not become a trip hazard. Almost all footway work is done alongside pedestrians, which governs how the site is arranged.
Private and rural roads
Farm and estate roads, private drives and access tracks. There is no adopting authority and therefore no imposed specification, so the construction is designed to what will actually use it. The common failure is building for cars a road that will regularly carry a laden agricultural trailer or a delivery lorry.
What differs, and what does not
Between all of these the underlying discipline is identical: sound formation, adequate compaction, layers built up in the right order, water taken off the surface, and edges properly supported. What changes is the standard applied, who inspects it, and how much of the work is constrained by keeping people and traffic moving past it.