Corporate report

HM Land Registry Strategy 2025+

Published 5 November 2025

Applies to England and Wales

Who we are and who we serve

Our purpose

We secure your property ownership, make buying of land easy and safe for everyone and provide access to property information.

Land is essential for life, providing food, housing, workplaces and the environment on which we all rely. Recognising land ownership has been crucial in creating civilisations and nations – and protecting property rights is vital for democracy.

A well-functioning property market significantly benefits our nation’s prosperity. Properties in England and Wales are valued at nearly £9 trillion, making up over half of the nation’s wealth, with around £1.66 trillion of lending secured against it. The UK has one of the world’s largest property markets with annual sales surpassing £360 billion.

HM Land Registry has been protecting property ownership rights and helping make the market work for our customers for over 160 years. Our priority is to keep the official record of who owns what land in England and Wales in a way that puts our customers’ needs and an excellent customer experience at the heart of the public services we provide. In doing so we make property transactions and access to property information safe, reliable and easy for everyone.

Our customers	Who are they?
Property owners: Ultimate beneficiaries of HM Land Registry’s services. Most work through legal specialists, but some work with us directly.	People: Use our services for moving home, updating the register following death or change of name
	Commercial property owners: Organisations who manage their own property/ assets. Includes: farmers, large landowners, private landlords, utility and energy companies, housing associations, local authorities, retail
	Developers: Organisations who acquire land or properties to build or renovate
People and businesses who help others to buy, sell and develop property: Those who are providing services to property owners and other organisations	Conveyancers: Legal specialists who work on behalf of property owners. Includes firms that deal with large volumes of similar transactions and complex commercial transactions
	Professional service providers: Other organisations that support property owners. Includes: surveyors, will writers, estate agents, construction firms, architects, asset managers
	Lenders: Banks and building societies providing mortgages and remortgages for property
	Other financial institutions: Other financial institutions including: accountancy and tax firms, credit referencing agencies, debt recovery and insolvency organisations
People and businesses who need property information: Those who want property information themselves or to help others buy, sell, research, market and manage a property	People and commercial property owners: Use our services to understand more about their own property, or who owns nearby land and property
	Digital service providers: Use our services to create digital property services for clients. Includes: platform providers, search providers, apps providers and case management system providers
	Other PropTech: Use our data to create services that optimise all areas of the property market, including research and analytics, modelling, extracting key data from legal documents
	Government organisations: Organisations who use our data to help with providing or managing their own services or properties, including government departments plus public sector bodies and their agencies, such as local authorities, police forces and other regulators

Our services

Change
We register changes in property ownership.
We receive over 17,000 requests to change details on the register each day.

Protect
We protect property ownership.
We provide guarantees for the owners of over 27 million property titles.

Inform
We provide property information.
We respond to around 215,000 requests for information about what is on our registers each day and make 13 datasets available for use, including information on the price paid for properties and registered leaseholds.

Our values

• We have integrity
• We drive innovation
• We are professional
• We give assurance

Our registers

The Register of Title
Covers over 90% of the land area. Registered property ownerships are worth nearly £9 trillion and have around £1.66 trillion of lending secured against them.

The Local Land Charges Register
Local authority information about the use and enjoyment of properties. Includes things such as listed building status, tree preservation orders and other environmental protections.

The Land Charges Register
Information about mortgages and other claims on land that isn’t officially registered. It also includes bankruptcy information.

The Agricultural Credits Register
Ensures security for lending over farm assets other than the land itself, including livestock and equipment.

Foreword

By Neil Sachdev, Chair

Neil Sachdev, Chair of HM Land Registry

I’m delighted, along with my Board colleagues, to support HM Land Registry at such a pivotal moment. As we look to the future, HM Land Registry’s role is more vital than ever: enabling growth, safeguarding property rights and delivering modern digital public services that meet the needs of a 21st-century Britain.

Much has already been achieved. I’ve seen first- hand how our people have embraced innovation to make our services faster, better and easier to use. But we’re clear-eyed: there is more to do. For too many, buying or selling a home – or simply accessing reliable land and property data – remains slow and unnecessarily complex. That must change.

Over the next five years, HM Land Registry will play a key role in supporting government’s ambitions – from building new homes and regenerating places, to unlocking clean energy infrastructure and transforming planning. By simplifying and accelerating property transactions, and making our data more accessible and trusted, we are helping drive economic growth, reduce friction for citizens and businesses, and build confidence in the housing market.

Our ambition is simple: to make property transactions clearer, faster and more secure for everyone. Whether you are a homebuyer, developer, lender, lawyer or policymaker, you should be able to rely on timely, high-quality services. The fees our customers pay must lead directly to better outcomes: faster processes, smarter use of data and easier access to the information people need. That is the standard we are setting ourselves.

We also recognise the distinct needs of the commercial sector – where time is capital, and speed, certainty and access to data are critical to unlocking investment. Businesses, from major developers to clean energy providers, need a service that matches their pace and ambition. We are committed to improving how we serve commercial customers: working in partnership with them to accelerate complex transactions, enable faster land assembly and support growth through better access to geospatial and ownership data. Helping investors act quickly and with confidence is essential to delivering national priorities – from housing and infrastructure to net zero and regeneration.

Crucially, we are unlocking the power of our data to do more than just support transactions – we are helping to shape better places. By improving the quality, accessibility and usability of our land and property data, we can help planners and developers see where opportunity exists: to regenerate neglected areas, strengthen logistics hubs and ensure that new housing is delivered in the right places – with access to jobs, schools, public services and sustainable transport. In doing so, we support not just economic growth but inclusive, connected communities.

To achieve this, we must go further and faster in our digital transformation. That means investing in our systems, improving our governance and adopting new tools and ways of working that allow for smoother, more transparent and efficient transactions. We will continue to work in partnership – across government and the property sector – to ensure we are part of the solution to today’s biggest challenges.

None of this is possible without our people. Their professionalism and public service ethos are at the heart of all we do. But the future also requires new skills and new thinking. This is a moment to build a modern organisation – one that attracts the best in digital, data and leadership talent, and equips colleagues at all levels to thrive in a changing environment.

This strategy sets a clear direction. It builds on the solid foundations of the past while meeting the challenges of today – and the opportunities of tomorrow. I was pleased to receive a recent letter from the Minister of State for Housing and Planning, setting out the Government’s expectations of us. In my reply , I made clear that HM Land Registry is ready to respond – with ambition, professionalism and pace.

By staying focused on our mission – delivering excellent service, enabling trusted data, supporting investment and helping communities grow – we will ensure that HM Land Registry continues to be the envy of the world and a vital part of a stronger, fairer property system for all.

The current context

A lot has changed since we published Strategy 22+. The world has shifted – with new conflicts, new governments and new economic pressures. The property market has shifted – with new investment in technology, new coalitions and new industry pledges. HM Land Registry has shifted – with new digital-by-default applications for customers, new automation and new people capacity.

Progress since 2022

We are committed to simplifying the process of buying and selling property by offering fast and reliable automated services – and have made good progress. Our investments to date have enabled us to digitally handle nearly 22 million information requests and 1 million updates to the register of property title almost instantaneously, each year. We have developed an online, digital way to request changes to the register and a single digital register for local land charges, making it easier for our customers to work with us more efficiently.

What hasn’t changed is how events in the world and the property market have the potential to impact HM Land Registry and our services. How we track, respond and plan for these events will influence how future focused and resilient we are as an organisation. Our strategy is aimed at helping us to do just that.

The property system is still too slow

The property system in England and Wales is still slow, complicated and lacks modern digital experiences. It often fails, with over a quarter of transactions not completing, causing a financial loss of around £400 million for those trying to sell. This impacts individuals, businesses and the economy. A digital property market would help fix this.

In 2023, HM Land Registry co-founded the Digital Property Market Steering Group with the property sector and government representatives to use innovation and our collective capabilities to make home buying and selling easier, faster and less stressful. Together, we can also support the Government’s wider property market goals, including building more homes, faster planning decisions, better transparency on land ownership, and implementing leasehold and commonhold reforms.

AI, emerging technologies and security bring great opportunities – and risks

AI offers us numerous benefits in both the near and long term, driving efficiencies and innovation, but it also poses potential challenges for security, social inequalities and digital exclusion. We know it will test our ethics and governance. It’s one of several technologies that are advancing rapidly – such as quantum computing – that are expected to be as transformative as AI within a decade. These advancements clearly offer HM Land Registry opportunities to offer better digital services that meet more of our customers’ needs and make us more efficient. But we recognise that we also need to strengthen our AI skills and capabilities to help us protect the integrity of the register from potential malicious uses of AI.

Environment and land use challenges will increase

Economic growth and building the homes we need to meet demand is the current priority for most governments. Nevertheless environmental and land use issues are set to become key priorities within the decade as climate change reshapes the global landscape and the demand for resources, such as critical minerals, intensifies. The Government has recognised the need for better national energy security, setting a goal of achieving at least 95% clean power by 2030 and accelerating the UK’s journey to net zero. HM Land Registry’s ambition to provide real-time, secure geospatial data means we can potentially support sustainability planning, tracking of natural resources and broader green commitments. We will also be mindful of our own organisational carbon footprint while modernising and digitising our data and services, recognising that new technology requires more energy.

Our future customers and workforce are digital consumers

Government services must adapt to meet the expectations of young, digitally savvy public service users who value convenience, flexibility and personalised experiences. Understanding this generation’s preferences while still meeting the needs of older generations is going to be crucial to us designing and providing modern public services for all our customers. Similarly, future-focused people recruitment and development strategies will be essential to us attracting and retaining talent and training the leaders of the future while upskilling the current workforce to reduce digital exclusion. HM Land Registry is undergoing its most significant transformation in over 20 years to serve our customers better, and we must prepare our people to achieve this.

A vision of the future

Property ownership and protection

What we will provide

Easy services for everyone
We put our customers at the heart of everything we do. Our tech-powered services are easy to get hold of, easy to understand, easy to use and great value for money. Our expert people are on hand to help. We fix things quickly if they don’t work.

How you will benefit

You get support and guidance from us, no matter your knowledge and circumstances.

Whether you’re buying your first home, managing a business or dealing with multiple, complex property issues, we are professional, supportive and clear in how we help.

Buying and selling property

What we will provide

Better protected property rights
Property rights and information is even more secure because we use digital systems and security measures that work hard behind the scenes. Our registers are digital, accurate and up to date so reliable information can be shared quickly, safely and easily.

How you will benefit

You continue to benefit from protected property rights and the ability to buy, sell or borrow against your property confidently and safely – but it’s all now significantly quicker and simpler. And you have more control over how you access our services.

Our services are fast, and our information is up to date, even when demand for our services is high.

Wider property market and land use planning

What we will provide

Supporting the property market with our data
We have unlocked more of our data. This, combined with our expertise, is making it easier for people who need to know about, use or build on land to be better informed, and interconnect with each other and with us.

How you will benefit

Everyone has a better understanding of land availability and what’s there. You can more easily work with us and other people to make better decisions collectively about how we all best use land for the public and for nature. We are all putting the right things in the right places.

Wider economy

What we will provide

Our data is used for wider public good
Our data is easily and safely accessed by verified users, to support innovation. Our services are helping wider society and economic growth.

How you will benefit

We give you a fair and flexible service that allows secure, easy and seamless access to our data, enabling you to use our data for your personal, business or research needs.

How we will get there

Having a vision is one thing. Making it happen is another.

Achieving digital services and expertise that unlock a better, faster and less stressful property market will not be easy. It will require significant effort and

investment from HM Land Registry – and across the whole property sector – over the next decade. But we are setting ourselves up to deliver it.

We’ve identified the following priorities to focus on and help us get there:

Easy services for everyone

We will make our services and information easy to get hold of, easy to understand and easy to use. We will understand and respond to the changing needs of our customers by communicating with them in ways that work for them. We will make it easier for people to pay for our services – and it will be clear what they are getting for their money.

Supporting the property market and beyond with our data

We will use agreed data standards to digitise, sort and share our data, focusing on what’s most useful, first. We will create and maintain the highest data security and integrity standards so everyone can be confident that information they get from us is high quality and shared with care. We will develop a land register that allows vital property information to be shared as spatial data, so that it can be viewed and used by others in countless ways to map the data they are most interested in. We will support the creation of the National Data Library.

Simplified, digital systems for better protected property rights

We will create systems to support our services to give better protection for property owners and make buying and selling property easier. Modern technology, ongoing digital security investments and artificial intelligence (AI) driven automation, coupled with expert human decision-making and quality assurance, will enable us to provide faster, easier and more secure property ownership. We will eventually automate more and create better. more secure ways to verify people digitally, further speeding up our services. This will build resilience in our services that are most impacted by market fluctuations and enable our expert people to focus on better supporting more complex customer needs.

High performing people who put customers first

We will engage our people in changes to our data, systems and ways of working, to create an environment where they feel valued and empowered to thrive. We will strengthen leadership capacity to drive modern digital public services and embed a high-performance culture, enabling individuals to take ownership of their development and career progression. Customer needs will shape how we recruit, develop and retain talent, fostering a customer-centric culture. Investment in learning and strategic workforce planning will ensure our people have the right skills to serve customers in a digital world. By leading our people through this transition, we will create a workforce where experts focus on complex customer needs, supported by strong digital skills that can be flexibly deployed to serve our customers better.

Easy services for everyone

Where we are now

For more than 160 years, we have been holding and protecting records of property ownership in England and Wales. By providing a reliable public record of who owns property, we are helping to protect against fraud and supporting buying, selling, borrowing and lending against property – all of which supports the nation’s economy. Our registers secure nearly £9 trillion in assets and £1.66 trillion in loans.

The principles and importance of land registration have not changed over the last 160 years but the world in which we now provide our services has changed beyond recognition. For some time already, customers have expected quick and simple digital self-service as a bare minimum. The next generation of homeowners, as digital natives, will expect even more. Customers expect to be able to speak to an expert if they’re having problems getting what they need.

The Government’s vision for modern digital government in the UK  is next-generation services that are driven by experts and new technology to make lives easier, that work as well for businesses as they do for citizens, that are secure, resilient and save everyone time and money. We share this vision – and we know that achieving it will mean significant effort.

We know that we haven’t been fully meeting our customers’ expectations.

We want to change this.

Where we want to be

We want all our customers to feel they have had an outstanding service from us, however they interact with us. Whether they are buying their first home, managing a business or dealing with multiple, complex property issues, we will be professional, supportive and clear in how we help. We will be making our customers’ lives easier because we have designed our services around them – saving them time, money and energy.

Our talented teams across the organisation will be putting customers at the heart of everything we do. We will better understand our customers, reducing their need to understand how our services work. Our guidance and processes will be easier to understand. Built-in timelines and status updates will keep our customers informed so they always know what’s happening, and what happens next.

Automated and AI-powered digital services will be enabling us to handle routine tasks faster and free up our experts to help customers with more complex cases or with more complex needs. This combination of skilled, dedicated, customer-focused individuals and technology will allow us to tailor our services to meet our customers’ evolving needs.

We will listen to our customers. And when things don’t work for our customers, we will fix them quickly. We will test our products with our customers, sort out the problems, change the design and test it again. And that will continue indefinitely so that our services keep up with the needs of our customers.

Our service fees will provide excellent value for money. They will be fair and simple to understand. Our customers will see clearly what they are paying for, and why. We will be saving our customers money by quickly tackling waste and fraud, ensuring every pound is spent effectively on excellent public service delivery.

We want our customer services to be so seamless that the work put in behind the scenes by our people and systems is invisible. We will be doing the hard work for them.

How we will get there

By 2030

We will make our services and information as easy as possible to access, understand and use. Our customers will be able to see where they are in the process and how long things will take, giving them more control.

We will be able to understand and respond to the changing needs of our customers because we are communicating with them in ways that work for them and us.

We will design services for our customers, with our customers. We will be using advanced data intelligence to understand how our services are functioning, in real time. We will fix things quickly if needed.

We will enable integration of our data with our customers’ digital platforms to help speed up home buying and selling.

We will have significantly simplified the way our customers pay for our services. We will make it clear what they are paying for, why, and what they can expect in return.

We will provide people with quick and easy access to land and property information and ability to update their personal details online.

By 2035

We will have made it easy for people to update simple changes to their property ownership details themselves.

We will have flexible, fully tailored systems and corresponding people support for our customers, that meet their differing needs.

Simplified, digital systems for better protected property rights

Where we are now

Land registration has historically been based on processes that involve paper legal documents – whether that was property title deeds, signing contracts in front of witnesses or checking physical maps to understand where the boundaries of properties lie. That has changed. We now exchange information electronically everyday – through emails, online, through smartphones. The problem is that our current digital systems have just replicated what we used to deal with as paper forms. We have automated our system for responding to requests for property information, but we send that information in a portable document format (PDF) – essentially, electronic paper. And we still accept and send paper copies of legally binding documents in certain situations because we haven’t yet found suitable digital replacement options.

Like many public bodies, we have not invested enough in our technology and we are struggling with maintaining legacy systems which are not serving our customers, or us, well. We have struggled to respond effectively when the housing market has its periodic bursts of activity. Global economic situations are forever shifting and we need to be ready to support the Government in responding to those.

One of the biggest challenges we have is that our information is still mainly text-based, and it is not structured in a way that allows us to get to and use the underlying data. It stops us from being able to automate more of our services. It stops us being able to take full advantage of AI and other emerging technology. It stops us being able to enhance our casework systems so they are more efficient and accurate. It means that not all our information is up to date and that can slow things down – accurate, up front information is critical to people trusting us and us being able to support safe, secure property changes and sales. Accurate and accessible register information is also critical for us to better understand where our services are working well and where they aren’t, so we can continuously improve.

We must embrace new technology at the same time as protecting our customers, our registers and services from the inevitable cyber attacks and threats that will come from malicious users of the same technology. We must fix and update our technology if we are to be able to provide our customers with the trustworthy, accurate, digital and 21st-century services they rightly expect.

Where we want to be

We want a future where HM Land Registry’s services are fast, and our information is up to date, even when demand for our services is high. We will have developed new, simpler systems and processes that no longer rely on old technology – making our services safer, more secure, resilient and able to respond quickly to housing market peaks and troughs.

We can’t do this alone. We want to improve the digital platforms that our services run on, work with the property industry to develop agreed data standards and expand our application programming interface (API) services – where direct interactions between our customers’ systems and ours allows for near instantaneous transactions. Doing this will allow us not only to develop great digital services for our customers but also create an environment in which digital innovation in the property market can thrive.

It will mean that we will be receiving more information digitally, directly and in a way that helps reduce errors for everyone. AI and automated processes will be helping to process that information immediately or get it to the right person to deal with, swiftly. Simple requests to change the register – such as remortgaging or the straightforward sale of an already registered property – will be near instantaneous. Even the most complex cases will be dealt with quickly, supported by dedicated, focused experts.

We will work with government and the property sector to develop and promote the use of secure and convenient forms of digital identity checking and e-signatures so people can be certain that the identity of who they are dealing with is genuine and verified. This means property transactions are more secure. Our systems are safer, and we can more readily spot suspicious activity. Relevant information can be shared quickly, safely and easily.

We will better understand how customers interact with us and how data flows around our systems. We will be using that knowledge to improve our performance continuously and develop even more efficient services. Any inconsistencies in data and information will be quickly identified and rectified. We will hold ourselves to the highest ethics, accountability and transparency standards in how we are using AI and other technology – and particularly in keeping our customers safe and us safe from malicious activity.

All this means that our registers will be up to date, accurate and more highly secure. Local authority information on local land charges will be available instantly on one register. People can place even more trust in HM Land Registry to keep their property rights safe.

We believe in the power of digital technologies to transform land and property services, making them more efficient, accessible and responsive to market needs.

We can’t do this alone. But by unlocking the capabilities of our platforms, developing data standards, and expanding our API (application programming interface) services, we can create an environment where digital innovation in the property sector can thrive.

We’re transforming how we design and deliver APIs, making them modern, reliable and easy to integrate. With clear documentation, accessible testing, simple onboarding and strong support, our goal is to create APIs that drive innovation and efficiency across the land and property sector.

API services roadmap

Now	Next	Future
Easy services for everyone: We provide a great public service and are easy to do business with for everyone	Partner with customers to design improved services to elevate their experience supported by seamless digital solutions	Transform our most critical data, to enable the creation of a geospatial land register combining geographic and ownership information

How we will get there

By 2030

We will be using AI and technology to automate as much as possible and as quickly as possible, focusing on the areas that make our services faster, more reliable and more secure.

We will create better, more secure ways to verify people digitally, further speeding up and protecting our services.

We will be able to route customer queries to the right place or person, first time.

We will no longer be reliant on old technology that puts us at risk. Our new systems will enable us to spot and sort any inconsistencies in our data quickly.

We will have improved Property Alert notifications to customers to give quicker notice when someone else is inquiring about their property.

We have automated many simple requests to change the register, including remortgaging and straightforward sales of already registered properties.

We will have completed the creation of a register with instant access to local authority information on local land charges.

By 2035

Our information is near instant and accurate.

We have automated almost all simple requests to change the register, offering a near-instant service for home buying and selling.

We will be automating more complex cases, alongside experts who are providing human quality assurance, decision-making and focused customer support.

We provide reliable and fast services, regardless of the market demand.

Supporting the property market and beyond with our data

Where we are now

Our data is a national asset. Our records hold an incredible wealth of information, including who owns a property, whether it’s freehold or leasehold and its mortgage status. They also tell buyers whether there are any restrictions on its use, such as listed building status, tree preservation orders and other environmental protections. We know there is significant untapped value in this data. Releasing it would not only realise that value but reduce duplication, fragmentation and waste for us and among the organisations that we work with. The transformative power of data comes through investment in creating, combining and building capability to use high-quality data from different sources. We have seen that first- hand through our Geovation Accelerator Programme, where we support entrepreneurs and start-ups through funding but, more importantly, through access to the data we hold.

We already provide public access to information on individual property titles for a fee. Over half our customers only use this type of information service and they interact with us on digital platforms without the need for human intervention. But some of information is only available on a property title-by- title basis, and its shared in a PDF which restricts its use. Even the whole datasets we currently make publicly available contain limited property information and are only updated once a month.

We predict more of our customers will only be using our information services in the future – we received 27.8 million requests in 2024-25, 2.5 million more than the previous year. We foresee this number rising even further if we can give our customers more and easier access to the data we hold. However, our data is complex and held in a variety of formats, ranging from paper files and scanned images to a selection of digital images. Most of our data is not machine interpretable or reusable within modern information systems. Our spatial and textual register data currently sit in separate systems that don’t connect. This means that, as well as not being able to take full advantage of emerging technology, we can’t share, combine or interconnect our data with others. Which means that no-one can reap the benefits this kind of data collaboration can bring.

We are not alone in this challenge. Others across the public sector and in the property, housing, planning and land use sectors are facing the same predicaments. If HM Land Registry could enable others to view, share, interrogate and combine our data with their data, we would create endless opportunities and benefits.

Where we want to be

Making property data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable will be central to all our work.

We will have digitised our data based on the economic and social value they unlock, while ensuring that data security, integrity and privacy remain paramount. We will have agreed data standards with government and the property sector, which means we can all be confident our data is good quality information, and we can share safely and easily with each other while protecting individuals’ personal data. As a result, the home buying and selling process will be significantly quicker and easier for everyone involved.

We will have created a geospatial and fully digital land register where vital property information such as ownership, leasehold, rights of way, covenants, contractual arrangements and boundaries is accessed in a way that allows layers of our data to be viewed, interrogated and overlaid against other geographical information layers. We will be saving property and infrastructure developers time and money because they can directly collect, process and analyse vast amounts of our spatial data in real time. This will allow them to make faster, more accurate decisions about where might be suitable to apply for planning to build new houses, roads, railways or runways. We will be supporting planners by overlaying our data with local authorities’ information, so green, brown and grey belt land can be easily identified in one place. Our data will be able to be combined with meteorological data so areas suitable for building on-land windfarms can be more easily identified. We will be able to overlay farming data, such as soil health and crop productivity, with our spatial ownership information, allowing individual farmers and farming cooperatives to make better land purchasing and development strategies, achieving better production and biodiversity.

Our property data will be able to be combined with health data to deliver public health improvements and with crime data to prevent fraud and criminal activity and help solve crimes. Researchers will be able to use more of our 160+ year old data in genealogy and other historical social research.

We will support the development of the National Data Library to ensure our data is as findable and accessible as possible, because we know it will be used by innovators in ways we can’t even imagine yet.

We will develop a fair and simple charging model that balances the need for increased access to our data with the need for financial sustainability, the need to ensure that people’s private information and property remains protected, and the need to maintain high-quality information.

How we will get there

By 2030

We will use agreed data standards to digitalise, sort and share our data, focusing on what’s most useful, first.

We will create and maintain the highest data security and integrity standards so everyone can be confident that information they get from us is high quality and shared with care.

We will design and deliver a service that provides information on who has contractual controls over land and property.

We will reengineer the land register so it provides the most useful modern mapping and property ownership information. Alongside, we will provide bespoke services to support customers involved with getting Britain building, including housebuilders, infrastructure developers and local leaders, helping them deliver 1.5 million homes and new towns.

We will help the Government to digitalise and improve the home buying and selling process, use our data to support ownership reforms and increase transparency of land ownership controls.

We will support the creation of the National Data Library so it includes our data.

By 2035

We will have made all property information held by us available and instantly accessible online.

We will complete the creation of a register that shares property information as spatial data, so it can be viewed and used by others in countless ways to map the data they are most interested.

Through the National Data Library, people are using our spatial and other data in countless ways to support their research and businesses.

High performing people who put customers first

Where we are now

Our people are the reason for our past successes, and they are critical to achieving our future goals. For 160 years, they have been trusted with keeping track of the nation’s most important asset. They have done so with deep expertise and strong public service values.

The nature of our work and the way HM Land Registry was funded previously has meant that, historically, our workforce has been vulnerable to fluctuations in the property market and the economy. Between 2007 and 2017, following the global financial crisis, our workforce halved from almost 8,000 dedicated land registration professionals to less than 4,000. This major loss of capacity and expertise meant that, when the property market bounced back, there was a mismatch between our customers’ needs and our ability to meet them. It overwhelmed our services, leading to poor outcomes for our customers.

Since 2017, we have been rebuilding our workforce to match demand for our services and regain the land registration expertise needed to ensure property ownership protection. Our workforce is now stabilised at around 7,000 people, which has allowed us to improve our existing services and begin to build the expertise needed to create digital services for the future.

The urgent need to deliver those digital service to meet the changing needs of our customers is bringing a different set of challenges for our people.

A recent review of the state of digital government showed three of five root causes that need to be addressed to meet our digital reform challenges relate to people and performance. There is inconsistent senior digital leadership in government due to a lack of training and the fact that prioritising service digitalisation is not valued or rewarded. Digital leaders are not consistently found at senior levels meaning they don’t have the power to shape the strategic agenda. There is no consistent measurement of digital performance across the public sector, including service quality, cost, risk or ability to deliver change. Compensation and career progression are uncompetitive with the private sector, especially for senior leaders, making it hard to attract and retain top digital and data talent.

We know that AI is likely to continue to change the labour market, though exactly how and how quickly is not certain. What is certain is that this new technology will mean some work activities take less time, making us more efficient, and new jobs will be created. It will mean a significant shift in our culture and ways of working – not just for digital teams, but for all our people. As an organisation, HM Land Registry is facing the most significant transition in the way our workforce serves our customers in more than 20 years. And we need to equip our leaders to deliver this workforce transition.

Where we want to be

Developing the skills and expertise of our people so we can collectively meet our ambitions in the near and long term will be fundamental to us delivering this strategy.

We will create and deliver new learning and development plans that nurture talent, strengthen our leadership capacity to drive modern digital public services and embed a high-performance culture that is focused on and equipped to respond to our customers’ needs. We will continue to invest in developing our unique land registration skills, so we can deliver both the customer services we aspire to and support the Government’s implementation of housing reforms, some of which – like changes to leasehold and commonhold policies – will require us to refresh and build new knowledge.

We will adopt a digital first operating model. Digital skills will no longer be seen as a specialism but a necessity for every area of our organisation. We will significantly increase the strength and depth of digital skills across our whole workforce to enable our people to serve customers using the latest innovations in technology and AI. Our whole workforce will be digitally savvy – because our customers’ need is to be served digitally. Digital leadership skills will be essential for all our senior leaders. We will equip our people to lead confidently the agile, customer-focused, multidisciplinary teams needed to deliver those services.

Retaining our cutting-edge geospatial data transformation capability that delivered our digital local land charges information service gives us a rare opportunity (not available to other parts of the public sector) to secure the digital data skills that are fiercely competed for in the jobs market more easily.

We will have the right mix of internal teams and external suppliers, relying less on wholesale outsourcing but working in partnership with industry to bring in innovation and targeted support. We will make sure there are sufficient opportunities for our people to reskill so they are equipped for delivering our digital ambitions, including into AI and AI-enabled jobs and digital leadership roles. Building on our great relationships network across government and industry, including overseas jurisdictions, we will make it a priority to engage with other digital leaders so we can learn from them.

As we adopt more digital methods to meet customer needs, we will better handle demand spikes from market volatility. This will allow us to use our most experienced land registration professionals where human interactions are most important, maintaining and improving customer trust and satisfaction. We’ll work with our people to identify what they value most in their roles, to achieve both higher productivity and greater job satisfaction.

Our people will use their expertise, combined with customer insights, to develop services that better reflect real-world needs and provide better value. Our teams will have the skills and support to innovate, start small, fail fast and continuously improve. They will test ideas with customers, fix issues, adjust designs and repeat until our services meet their needs.

In blending our historical expertise in land registration with an equally deep commitment to the central role of the customer voice in improving our service, we will ensure our workforce becomes laser-focused on making it easy for every customer to use our services and do business with us. This combination of skilled, dedicated individuals and technology will allow us to meet the evolving needs of the property market and become a higher performing, more efficient organisation. It will also make a job at HM Land Registry more attractive, more satisfying and more meaningful for talented people who want to serve the public.

How we will get there

By 2030

Our people will help shape the transformational changes we make to our data, our systems and our workforce so they meet their needs, as well as those of our customers. We will build and support our leaders so they can confidently deliver modern digital public services.

We will put the voice of the customer at the heart of how we recruit, develop and retain our expert people. We will create a customer-centric culture where our people champion our vision for serving our customers better through digital services.

We will strengthen our learning offer for our people to enable them to apply their unique land registration and property market expertise in a digital world.

We will embed a high-performance mindset, empowering people to own their performance, supported by quality conversations and meaningful data.

We will develop long-term strategic people plans so our talented people have the right skills that can be flexibly deployed to serve our customers better.

We will transition our workplaces to a smaller, better, greener estate with workspaces that enhance productivity and engagement, and promote wellbeing, inclusivity and a sense of community.

By 2035

We will have led our people through our workforce transition, meaning our expert people spend almost all their time directly serving customers with complex needs or supporting them quickly when things go wrong.

We will have increased our ability to compete for and retain digital talent, making HM Land Registry an attractive and viable place for digital specialists.

	Where we are now	Where we want to be
Making a digital organisation	Varied levels of digital skills, confidence and experience	A hub for digital talent, driving digital services delivery
Our services mindset	Adopting an internal first approach and working in functional silos Inconsistent and reactive approach	Focused on our customers’ experience and what works for them Consistent and proactive approach
Driving high performance	Gaps in leadership skills and experience, making it harder for teams to adapt and improve quickly, creating a barrier to high performance	Leaders who create the conditions for customer-focused teams that experiment, learn from setbacks and keep getting better
Our jobs and teams	Tightly defined roles Career paths are in development Reactive people deployment	Adaptable roles, focused on outcomes Flexible career pathways Proactive, dynamic deployment of talent
Core purpose and expertise	Custodians of the register, integrity, trust and service to society

While we evolve our approach and develop digital skills, our core purpose doesn’t change: rooted in integrity, trust and service to society we remain proud custodians of property information, only now supporting a digital government and confident in our ability to evolve and lead in a changing world.