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

5.11. The design and specification stage involves the development of a building from an agreed brief through to coordinated design and the preparation of the information needed to secure consents. This stage must demonstrate that the design will meet the performance requirements of the brief, including an acceptable level of risk. It includes concept development, multidisciplinary coordination, safety-critical and performance-determining design, and the production of specifications and technical information that enable construction and allocate responsibility. Similar to the pre-design stage, decisions made during design and specification often have long-term consequences for the overall project.

5.12. The skills, knowledge and experience required at this stage can vary significantly depending on the nature, scale and risk profile of the building as well as the specific functions being undertaken. Those working in design and specification roles are supported by a range of education pathways, professional bodies and competence frameworks. The UK is home to world-leading design professionals, supported by strong educational institutions. However, this strength is not always reflected in the safety, performance and sustainability of our built environment, sometimes driven by uneven skills development across design professions.

5.13. There is significant variation across professions and occupations in workforce size, capability and capacity, as well as in how work is distributed between regulated professions, chartered professionals and other specialists. While many professions have established education and training pathways, there is evidence of skills shortages, capacity constraints and challenges in retaining experienced practitioners. The journey to becoming a competent design professional is long. For the majority, the process is academically, practically and financially demanding. However, this is often not matched in early and mid-career pay. Further, technological change, new materials and necessary reforms following the Grenfell Tower tragedy are also changing expectations.

5.14. Design and specification work is often delivered through multidisciplinary teams operating under a range of commercial and contractual arrangements. How effectively these teams work together and are managed can have a meaningful impact on behaviour, conduct and culture. The way multidisciplinary teams are organised, incentivised and supported, for example, may directly influence the quality of collaboration and assurance and the ability to prioritise safety, quality, performance and sustainability alongside cost and programme pressures.

5.15. Accountability and responsibility are shared between a wide range of professions, trades and occupations who contribute to the design and specification of buildings. Depending on the context, this may include architects, architectural technicians, fire engineers and engineers of different specialisms and others, working within multidisciplinary teams and across organisational and contractual boundaries. Responsibilities for design intent, safety-critical design, performance-determining design and coordination are often not held by the same roles or disciplines and may be allocated differently in practice from how they are described in guidance or contracts, if they are explicitly described at all.

5.16. The regulatory and assurance landscape that underpins these roles has developed unevenly. Architects are regulated in title under the Architects Act 1997. Other roles may have statutory duties attached to specific functions, as is the case with the principal designer role, or otherwise rely on chartership with professional bodies or voluntary registration with other industry schemes. Further, government has committed to introduce statutory regulation of fire engineers and fire risk assessors, though this work falls outside the scope of this call for evidence.

5.17. Part 2A of the Building Regulations 2010 sets out responsibilities of principal designers and designers to ensure compliance of building work with the Building Regulations. The principal designer and designer have duties around planning, managing, monitoring and coordinating matters related to the design work. Principal designers must meet competence requirements and are required to cooperate and communicate with other dutyholders. They have the responsibility for assuring competency in both high-risk buildings and non-high-risk buildings. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these requirements are not widely well understood or implemented, with implications for how accountability and personal responsibility is realised in practice.

5.18. This section invites evidence on how design and specification functions operate in practice, particularly how responsibility for design intent, coordination and safety critical decisions is allocated and managed across disciplines. We are interested in whether skills, knowledge and experience align with the functions being performed, how capability is developed and sustained and how commercial operating models may influence professional judgment and collaboration.

Questions: Design and specification

Please ensure you have read the relevant section of the call for evidence document before answering these questions. When answering these questions, please provide real-world examples and quantitative evidence wherever possible to support your response. You may cross-refer between answers, where applicable. Where information provided is commercially sensitive or otherwise not suitable for wider publication, please make sure this is clearly marked.