Call for Evidence: Strategy for the built environment professions, trades and occupations

1.1. The people and organisations who design, build, manage and maintain our buildings and built environment have an impact on almost every aspect of our lives. It is therefore essential that we have a skilled, motivated, responsible and productive workforce across the built environment, who are consistently equipped and enabled to deliver safe, high-performing and sustainable buildings.

1.2. We are developing a new long-term strategy for the built environment professions, trades and occupations (the “Professions Strategy”), to be published in Spring 2027. This will take an overarching view of skills, behaviours and accountability across the built environment sector, drawing on evidence of what does and doesn’t work, to set out a long-term strategy for government, industry and those working in the sector. A critical aspect of this strategy will be to consider how government and industry can work together to improve equality, diversity, inclusion and access to the sector.

1.3. We are seeking evidence about both the people and organisations who work in the built environment and the overall system within which they operate: who does what, how work is undertaken and how skills, knowledge, behaviours and accountability practically support safety, quality, sustainability, resilience, growth and productivity. This call for evidence is designed as an information gathering exercise and does not present new policy proposals for consultation at this stage. The findings of this call for evidence will help us make critical choices about the shape and scope of the full strategy based on a solid understanding of how the system works now, and the kinds of actions that will lead to demonstrable change.

1.4. The Professions Strategy will be mutually reinforcing with other reforms and policies relating to the built environment across government. This includes the design and implementation of a new single construction regulator, changes to building regulations and construction product regulation and cross-government initiatives such as the upcoming Construction Jobs Plan. As government, we are committed to working collaboratively to make sure these programmes and policy reforms fit together as part of a coherent programme of change. Taken together, these will enable us to tackle deeply entrenched social and economic challenges across the built environment sector, to support a shared vision for the future.

1.5. Practically, this will require collective commitment from both government and the sector to a long-term, ambitious programme of change that will have a lasting impact. We will work closely with industry to design and implement the new strategy to deliver meaningful, long-lasting and system-wide transformation that meets the needs of both those who work in the sector and those who live in and use those buildings and built environments every day.