Major strides were made in the implementation of the Building Safety Act (BSA) in 2025, and looking ahead to the year to come, there are more milestones which will impact the built environment. There are several updates which the industry needs to meet over the coming year – and we’ll break down what this means for those in the industry.

The BSA is now moving into a more settled and operational phase. After two years of Gateway activity, most organisations have a baseline understanding of what the regime requires. Building safety is increasingly influencing programme certainty, cost planning, design decisions and risk appetite. The challenge in 2026 is less about learning the rules and more about how consistently and effectively those rules are being applied in practice.

This year includes several developments that will have real-world impacts on projects and portfolios. The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) is transferring from the Health and Safety Executive to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Wales is preparing to introduce its own Building Safety framework, and the Building Safety Levy is expected to come into force later in the year. Alongside these regulatory changes, competence requirements for duty holders and organisations continue to expand.

Reforming the Building Safety Regulator

The BSR’s transition from the Health and Safety Executive to MHCLG marks a significant step in how building safety is positioned within government. It reflects the reality that the regulator’s role now sits firmly in the built environment space rather than within traditional workplace health and safety oversight.

The BSR’s responsibilities span building control, duty holder accountability, resident safety, and the long-term performance of higher-risk buildings. Locating the regulator within MHCLG aligns it more closely with housing policy, remediation funding, planning reform, and the broader system of regulation that governs how homes are delivered. The move also follows the direction set in post-Grenfell reform, where building safety oversight was always intended to operate with independence and visibility, rather than as a function within the HSE.

From an operational perspective, the regulator has already matured noticeably since Gateway processes went live. Early challenges around application backlogs and inconsistent feedback have eased, and the process is becoming more predictable. Expectations on design justification, Golden Thread information, and duty holder clarity are clearer than they were in the first year of operation, and there is growing consistency in how decisions are being applied across projects.

Looking ahead, the regulator is likely to place greater emphasis on the quality and robustness of submissions as volumes increase, particularly at Gateway 3. That may mean more detailed challenges on technical decisions, stronger expectations around competence evidence, and greater scrutiny of how safety risks are being identified and managed through design and construction. For project teams, this will require earlier alignment on regulatory strategy, more disciplined information management, and stronger assurance processes before submissions are made.

Over time, this shift may also influence how building safety is treated commercially and contractually. As regulatory decisions increasingly affect programme certainty and cost exposure, we are likely to see clients building Gateway strategy, competence assurance, and Golden Thread requirements into project governance and procurement at an earlier stage.

Single Construction Regulator

The government has now committed to creating a Single Construction Regulator, following the first recommendation of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report. In December 2025, MHCLG published a Single Construction Regulator Prospectus and launched a public consultation on how the new regulator should be designed and what functions it should take on.

The intention of this reform is to move beyond guidance-led oversight towards stronger system-level regulation, including the ability to investigate systemic failures, intervene earlier, and take enforcement action where standards are not being met. Rather than looking only at individual projects in isolation, the new regulator is expected to place greater emphasis on organisational behaviour, corporate governance, product assurance, and competence management across portfolios. Firms may increasingly be assessed on how they manage risk, control quality, assure competence, and govern safety at a company level, not just how they perform on a single scheme.

For clients, consultants, and contractors, this is less about an immediate procedural change and more about preparing for a more structured and assertive environment over the next few years. Organisations that already take a consistent, evidence-led, portfolio-wide approach to building safety are likely to be better positioned as this new framework takes shape.

Chief Construction Advisor

As part of the government’s response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2, the Chief Construction Adviser (CCA) role was formally reinstated in September 2025. This role operates at a strategic, cross-government level, intended to strengthen oversight of how construction policy and industry standards are developed and applied in practice.

Over time, this role is likely to steer policy direction, regulatory priorities, and industry expectations, particularly in areas such as professional accountability, product assurance, procurement behaviours and cultural change across the industry. This signals a welcome and continued shift towards stronger central oversight and clearer responsibility for how construction standards are set and upheld.

What does best practice look like?

Taken together, these changes point to a clear shift in the UK construction landscape. Regulation is becoming more coordinated, more demanding, and more closely tied to commercial and delivery outcomes. Building safety is increasingly shaping programme strategy, cost planning, procurement decisions and risk appetite.
In practice, this means clients need joined-up advice that connects regulation with delivery, cost, and governance. From a health and safety perspective, my team works with clients to interpret evolving regulatory expectations and improve readiness for Gateways. Our project and cost management teams are also supporting clients across the myriad of workstreams impacted by these changes.

What we are increasingly seeing is that the most effective responses come where building safety, commercial planning, and delivery strategy are considered together, rather than in isolation. Clients who treat regulation as a late-stage hurdle tend to experience greater disruption. Those who integrate regulatory thinking early, align roles and responsibilities properly, and invest in strong governance are better placed to manage risk, maintain programme certainty, and protect valu