Policy paper

Ofsted Strategic Asset Management Plan - Executive Summary

Published 30 October 2025

key statistics as 31 March 2025*

Ofsted Sites	Outturn for 2024-25
Total estates running costs	£5.5m
Holdings	7
Floorspace (buildings) sqm	5,310sq.m
Staff number (headcount / FTE)	2,058 / 1,952
Of which are home based	1,028 / 999
Locations	York, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham, Cambridge, Bristol, London

*as at 31 July 2025 we have 8 holdings

Our Business

Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. It is a non-ministerial government department. Our principal objective when carrying out our functions is to make sure that organisations providing education, training and care services in England do so to a high standard for children and students. 

We carry out our role through independent inspection and regulation. Inspection provides an independent assessment of the quality of provision. Regulation allows us to determine whether certain providers are fit to provide services. We take enforcement action against those that are not. We also aggregate the insights from our work and report on the state of education and children’s social care. 

Ofsted aims to raise standards and improve lives for all, with disadvantaged and vulnerable children and learners at the heard of what we do. We want to be trusted by the parents, carers, children and learners we work for, and the professionals we work with. Since 2024, we have been delivering an ambitious reform package, and our new strategy will be published in Autumn 2025 to reflect our renewed strategic priorities. 

Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) is responsible for inspecting and regulating services for children and learners and is accountable to Parliament. His duties are set out in Ofsted’s corporate governance framework.

Our staff 

Ofsted had 1,952 FTE as of 31 March 2025. This comprises of 979 inspectors and 989 APT staff of which c26% directly face the public and assess regulatory risk. The majority of Ofsted’s workforce, 75% of employees, are located outside of London.

In terms of operational delivery roles, for the purposes of inspection, the country is split into eight regions. We moved to our current regional structure in 2013-14 to regionalise the management of all inspection, regulation and compliance activity. 

Regions, and the Regional Directors – the main point of contact for all education and social care providers – are in the best position to build regional relationships, to gather and act on local intelligence, and to drive improvement in their local area. 

Our inspectors are location specific; they visit education, early years and children’s social care settings and provision in their local region.

Our estate

As at 31 March 2025, we occupied a total floor space of 5,310sqm across the country operating across five main sites in London, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and Bristol and smaller sites in York and Cambridge. 

We continue to work with the Government Property Agency (GPA) to vacate accommodation in a timely manner to support the delivery of the accelerated Plan for London and other building closures^{[footnote 1]}. 

In May 2025, our Nottingham based staff moved to Loxley House which is Nottingham City Council’s HQ. Our staff are in GPA-operated office space within this building. 

In June 2025, most of our London based staff relocated to a 10 South Colonnades which is a government hub in Canary Wharf. A very small number of desks is also available for HMCI and his Private Office in 100 Parliament Street – this is a temporary arrangement until an alternative location in the government estate is renovated. 

It is anticipated that staff in Manchester and Bristol will move to GPA managed hubs in December 2026 and January 2027, respectively. Relocation dates are dependent of GPA and both moves have been delayed due to unforeseen circumstances.

We plan to vacate Eastbrook, Cambridge in December 2026 when our current commitment with GPA ends. 

The priority is to ensure our estate supports Ofsted’s strategic objectives and is consistent with cross-government property strategy and the requirements placed on government departments.

We are dedicated to reducing our presence in London as part of the Places for Growth programme. By March 2025, we had relocated 37 roles from London, surpassing our initial goal of 35. 

Our Capability 

At Ofsted we are dedicated to developing our workforce to ensure all colleagues have the skills and knowledge required for their roles. The Ofsted Academy brings all Ofsted training and development programmes together. 

The Property team, in collaboration with GPA, develops Ofsted’s estates strategy to align our property portfolio with our business need and smarter ways of working. This includes property acquisition and disposal, building management and providing office accommodation that aligns with industry standards for health and safety 

Climate change adaptation and sustainability

We are committed to reducing our environmental impact under the Greening Government Commitments. Ofsted has reported (PDF, 2.5MB) climate-related financial disclosures following HM Treasury’s guidance and TCFD recommendations. We meet TCFD requirements on metrics and targets, addressing climate-related issues through our governance, risk management, and climate adaptation strategies. Future strategy disclosures will follow the implementation timeline.

1. Requirement of Spending Review 2025 Settlement ↩