Corporate report

Industry Competence Committee annual report 2025 to 2026

Published 3 June 2026

Applies to England

Summary statement from chair and vice-chair

This year marks some significant progress across the Industry Competence Committee’s (ICC) objectives in strengthening competence across the built environment industry, reflecting the commitment, expertise and collaboration of all those involved in the ICC’s work.

The ICC continues to benefit from the contribution of 18 active members, bringing a breadth of industry experience and a strong understanding of the challenges and opportunities in raising competence. The insight provided by government officials has also been valued across the year.

The period covered by this report has seen major changes, with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) becoming a non-departmental public body, independent of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and sponsored by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

As a result, the ICC now reports to the newly formed BSR Board, strengthening governance and accountability.

Across all areas of activity, setting expectations for competence, raising awareness, supporting competence pathways, evaluating progress, and advising on building control competence, the ICC’s emphasis has remained on collaboration, providing clarity and practical impact.

During the 2025 to 2026 year, this work has primarily focused on establishing strong foundations, including the development of principles, frameworks and governance structures to support consistent improvement across the sector.

The progress documented in this report reflects substantial contributions from industry, professional bodies, standards organisations, and government. We are particularly encouraged by the momentum building around guidance on competence management, client focused principles, and the development of UK-wide resources such as the Competence Hub: a shared space for industry to engage, learn and exchange best practice.

While it is too early to evidence meaningful outcomes in terms of industry-wide behaviour change, the work undertaken this year is intended to enable those outcomes over time.

As we look to the year ahead, the ICC remains committed to raising competence and encouraging cultural change.

Working with BSR, the ICC will begin to develop a structured approach to understanding and measuring the impact of its work, building on the foundations established during 2025 to 2026.

The scale of the task remains considerable, but the commitment of those working with us, to improve competence, safety, capability, and professionalism within the built environment industry, will create the necessary changes.

We thank all ICC members, working group members, task and finish group participants, and partners for their continued commitment. We look forward to building on the achievements of 2025 to 2026 as we enter the next phase of this important work.

– Jon Vanstone, chair of the ICC and Sandra Ashcroft, vice-chair of the ICC

About the Industry Competence Committee

The ICC was established in September 2023 under Section 10 of the Building Safety Act 2022 and, initially, section 11A (3) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

From January 2026, following the establishment of BSR as a standalone statutory body, the ICC operates solely under the Building Safety Act.

The ICC assists the BSR in fulfilling its duty to facilitate improvements in the competence of industry and building inspectors.

The ICC is an advisory body.  Its role is to provide independent advice, guidance and challenge to both BSR and the built environment industry on matters relating to competence. Responsibility for regulatory decisions and enforcement action remains with the regulator.

 It has the following functions: 

• monitoring industry competence by keeping track of the competence levels within the built environment industry
• advising the regulator by providing advice to BSR on matters related to competence in the built environment sector
• advising individuals and organisations within the built environment sector to help them improve their competence
• facilitating competence improvement by helping to improve competence through various initiatives and programmes
• providing guidance by giving information to the public on how to assess the competence of professionals in the built environment sector
• conducting research and analysis to support its other functions and improve overall competence of the sector

2025 to 2026 is the second full operating year of the ICC.

Membership

The ICC has 18 active members, including an industry chair, a vice-chair from BSR and a co-opted trade union representative. Members are appointed through an open and transparent appointment process, on account of their ability and experience in improving competence in the industry.

Members were initially appointed for a 3-year term. Options for re-appointment/extension to terms for current members are being considered, which will allow continuity of work and retention of institutional knowledge, whilst continuing the momentum change.

Government officials, including from the devolved administrations, with an interest in the ICC’s work attend meetings as observers.

Meetings take place every 2 months and meetings of the ICC’s working groups take place more frequently. There have been 6 ICC meetings during 2025 to 2026, and 31 meetings of its subgroups.

There are currently 3 time-limited task and finish groups, working in dedicated areas across the ICC’s setting expectations for industry objective. These groups have met regularly throughout the 2025 to 2026 work year, making significant progress in each area.

The ICC is supported by BSR, acting as secretariat. For more information, see the full list of ICC members.

How the ICC understands competence

Competence is the ability to consistently deliver safe and compliant outcomes through the combination of skills, knowledge, experience, behaviours, and the organisational systems that support effective decision-making and oversight.

The ICC has articulated this through the principles it has published across the last year This understanding underpins the principles, guidance and activities described throughout this report.

Progress against strategic objectives in 2025 to 2026

Objective 1: setting expectations

The ICC will set clear expectations for industry on competence and define what good looks like for both individuals and organisations.

The ICC focused on setting clear expectations for competence across the built environment industry. This included developing:

• overarching principles for industry
• principles on individual competence
• definitions for competence management and organisational culture

This work establishes a shared understanding of ‘what good looks like’ and provides a foundation for assessing how these expectations are applied in practice as guidance is implemented.

Highlights in work to meet the objective

• Engaged with more than 30 organisations from ICC’s wider network during development of Setting Expectations for Competence Management.
• Hosted a joint ICC, BSR and Industry Task and Finish Group webinar, with 500 people from within industry registering.  The webinar informed on the practical application of draft guidance.
• Reinforced ICC’s statutory role in aligning competence across the built environment, with the launch of the cross-government and industry retrofit competence task and finish group.

Task and finish group activities

A dedicated ICC task and finish group, Setting expectations on competence management, met throughout the year to advance organisational competence management principles and guidance. This was aligned with the work of a separate industry-led task and finish group, with both groups working together to support organisations to understand their regulatory requirements in this space. The ICC principles were published on the British Standards Institute (BSI) Built Environment Competence Hub in April 2026.

A new task and finish group was established, to address gaps in the understanding of client duties. The guidance for clients of the built environment group has looked at further defining what good looks like in the context of clients, focusing on behaviours, leadership, and culture rather than technical requirements.

Draft principles have been prepared, and industry consultation took place between March and April 2026. 

The Retrofit task and finish group was established in late 2025 to support the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the retrofit standards task group bring alignment between the competence and dutyholder regime under legislation and retrofit roles outlined within British Standards Institution publicly available specifications. This is an important enabler to the aims set out in the Warm Homes Plan, published in January 2026.

Objective 2:  Raising awareness

The ICC will raise awareness and promote advice relating to competence through a variety of communication channels.

During 2025 to 2026, the ICC chair, vice-chair and members attended and presented at a full schedule of industry events, detailed in Annex 1.

The ICC:

• supported by BSR, developed a set of core communications messages
• developed important messages for different groups along with PowerPoint slides to support members in events and engagements
• raised awareness of the work and progress of the ICC, through a consistent LinkedIn presence

Objective 3: competence pathways 

The ICC will advise and assist industry in developing and maintaining competence pathways.

Through its working group, the Industry Competence Steering Group (ICSG) and its composite sector-led groups (SLGs), the ICC focused on advising and assisting industry in scoping, developing and implementing competence frameworks across the built environment.  

This work has strengthened the governance and visibility of competence frameworks, establishing the conditions needed for more consistent implementation across sectors.

Membership of the ICSG and SLGs continued to grow as greater numbers of people from industry engaged in the competence conversation.

A key area of work began to strengthen the ICC interface with the ICSG, to ensure effective governance and support for sector-led activity.

The ICSG via the SLGs made strong progress in delivering the competence framework portfolio. Engagement activity included spotlight sessions, virtual progress presentations by SLG leads. These showcased SLG outputs and providing regular updates on current and planned work to industry to promote cross-sector collaboration.

Work began to look at the value and impact of frameworks that have been developed, to learn from the success stories and identify areas where further work may be needed.  This marks an initial step towards understanding how frameworks are used in practice and how their value may be monitored and assessed over time.

The ICSG, with the support of BSR, collaborated with the BSI, in their work to develop a UK-wide Competence Hub: a central online resource for the built environment industry to access competence standards, frameworks, guidance and related information.

Highlights in work to meet the objective

• Advising BSR on governance and support for ICSG frameworks and processes. 
• Approving a revised structure of ICSG, SLGs.  This restructure was proposed by ICSG based on industry feedback, the management of dependencies and cross sector collaboration.
• Through the ICSG, SLGs developed 46 sector-specific competence frameworks.
• Enhanced transparency through SLG spotlight sessions, showcasing progress, fostering opportunities for cross-sector collaboration and providing opportunities for ICSG and ICC members to provide constructive feedback.
• A number of events, presentations, webinars and engagement activities took place across the SLGs, adding to the momentum of the ICSG work and its reach. All had good attendance, with webinar audiences, for example, consistently registering over 300 people.
• Introduced guidance across the ICSG SLGs on the process for developing competence frameworks, enabling a consistent approach.
• BSI’s Competence Hub launched in January 2026, establishing a central point for competence information for the built environment industry across the UK. Over 2,200 people have accessed the hub, utilising resources.

Objective 4: Evaluating progress

The ICC will assist BSR both in improving the evidence base on competence and evaluating progress of the sector. 

The ICC continued its role in supporting BSR to strengthen its evidence base on industry competence.

As the ‘setting expectations’ work advances, the ICC anticipates opportunities to gather information on how industry is applying the new principles, recognising that meaningful sector‑wide outcomes will take time to emerge as guidance and frameworks move into wider use.

The ICC will also support BSR as it develops its wider strategy for monitoring competence, with work scheduled to progress later in 2026.

The ICC had the opportunity to advise and input to phase 1 of HSE’s Science, Engineering and Analysis Division’s (SEAD) overarching research project, designed to inform long-term work on improving competence. It explored the development of competence frameworks, involving interviews with ICSG chairs and SLG leads, to identify high-level barriers and facilitators to their implementation across the sector.  

The findings have helped shape the direction for future research and highlighted factors influencing the adoption and implementation of competence frameworks. The next phase of the project will include a scoping review of literature and desk-based examination of frameworks, to develop a plan for targeted stakeholder engagement.

Highlights in work to meet the objective

The ICC:

• took the opportunity to advise and input to phase 1 of SEAD’s evidence gathering project, providing insights into framework development and implementation
• recognised need for structured success criteria and indicators, informing the next phase of research and supporting a consistent approach to measuring competence

Objective 5: building control competence

The ICC will support the building control profession and BSR by giving advice on matters relating to the competence of building control professionals. 

The ICC continued to support the building control profession and BSR by providing advice on matters relating to the competence of building control professionals. A key area of work involved strengthening the capacity and insight of the Building Control Working Group through the appointment of 2 practising registered building inspectors.

This year, the working group prioritised identifying profession-wide competence gaps and advising BSR on standards of good practice for building control bodies. Initial focus was on improving supervision practices across registration classes. Significant progress has been made in developing guidance to support competence development, offering class-specific practical advice and case studies demonstrating effective supervision. This work reflects the diverse professional backgrounds and entry routes into building control and will align with existing BSR guidance.  

Highlights in work to meet the objective

The ICC:

• strengthened Building Control Working Group expertise through the appointment of 2 practising registered building inspectors, following a BSR-led recruitment process supported by the ICC
• submitted formal evidence to the Building Control Independent Panel, providing data, interpretation, and insights on competence and capacity of the profession
• advised BSR on competence development for class 2 inspectors looking to gain experience on higher-risk building (HRB) work
• identified additional class 3 inspector capacity, prompting BSR to explore opportunities through the Innovation Unit
• advised BSR on supervision practices, enabling the regulator to develop practical guidance for the profession with publication of guidance planned for later in 2026
• made early progress on identifying competence gaps and professional development needs to strengthen professional standards across building control

Forward look for 2026 to 2027

Forward look for objective 1: setting expectations

The ICC will:

• publish Setting Expectations on Competence Management in April 2026
• develop case studies to support the application of competence management guidance
• finalise and publish client focused guidance in summer 2026
• source case studies featuring both the public and private sector to support application of client focused guidance
• lead the retrofit competence task and finish group in supporting the development of aligned PAS (Publicly Available Specification) standards and competence frameworks, with the first phase to complete in autumn 2026

Forward look for objective 2: awareness

The ICC will:

• develop an events schedule for 2026 to 2027
• continue to regularly engage with industry to promote key messages, through its chair, vice-chair and members
• host an ICC-led industry roundtable event, planned for June 2026 to increase understanding of subcontracting-related challenges and identify opportunities for improving competence

Forward look for objective 3: competence pathways

The ICSG will:

• continue work to support, develop and implement sector-specific competence frameworks
• introduce an editorial review process for competence frameworks, to ensure consistency, quality, and continuous improvement. This review process will look at consistency against BS 8670 series, ICC setting expectations guidance and ICSG guidance on developing competence frameworks

The ICC will increase focus on cultural change, including ICSG to assess the factors required for successful implementation of frameworks and measuring the value and impact of its work.

Forward look for objective 4: evaluating progress

The ICC will:

• provide strategic advice to phase 2 of SEAD’s project, to ensure research outcomes directly support industry improvements
• advise BSR on the approach and criteria it should use as it develops and implements its strategy to monitor industry competence.  This is scheduled to start later in 2026.

Forward look for objective 5: building control competence

The ICC will:

• review emerging risks and future challenges that could affect the competence and capacity of the profession
• develop a strategic approach to support the long-term sustainability of registered building inspector career development, including entry routes, progression, and retention

Emerging themes that will shape priorities

Alongside the progress set out in this report, the ICC’s engagement with industry during 2025 to 2026 has highlighted several emerging themes that will shape priorities for 2026 to 2027 as competence frameworks and guidance move into wider application.

• Competence continues to be addressed predominantly at a trade or role level, with more limited integration across the full building lifecycle.
• Under-developed organisational competence remains, with many organisations still reliant on individual capability rather than embedded systems of assurance, supervision and governance.
• Gap in adoption of competence frameworks. Although the development of frameworks and guidance has advanced significantly, a gap in the adoption remains, with consistent uptake and application in practice not yet evident.
• Supervision and decision making. Variability has been observed in how competence is exercised in practice, particularly in complex or higher‑risk scenarios.
• Interfaces between regimes. Emerging complexity where different standards, PAS documents and regulatory expectations intersect.

These are identified emerging themes rather than definitive findings, but will help inform the ICC’s programme of work, including its focus on implementation, cultural change, sector engagement, and collaboration with BSR to strengthen understanding of progress and impact over time.

Accountability and governance

In January 2026, BSR officially became a non-departmental public body, independent of HSE and sponsored by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. 

As a result, the ICC now reports to the BSR Board, strengthening governance and accountability. 

Where issues discussed at ICC level cannot be resolved by the chair, then they are raised to the BSR Board, with BSR’s chief executive to make the final decision.

The vice-chair may also decide to escalate an issue if they feel it has the potential to adversely affect BSR policy or reputation.

A process to allow the ICC to escalate emerging risks or issues more frequently via a risk register is under consideration.

A short report on the ICC’s progress against its work plan is published 3 times per year on the ICC LinkedIn page.

Meeting structure   

This year, the committee trialled and implemented a new meeting structure. In-person, full-day meetings now take place every 4 months, with a shorter virtual meeting in-between. This change was made to support more productive discussions and the effective progression of key issues. BSR-facilitated workshops are a core feature of in-person meetings, where ICC members can feed back to officials and advice on specific development areas.

Topics and issues discussed at in-person workshops 2025 to 2026:

• principal designer and principal contractor roles
• 2025 to 2026 ICC workplan
• ICSG restructure
• HRB building control applications (gateway 2)
• BSR’s Built Environment Risk Register
• competence in subcontracting

Learnings from the ‘Competence in Subcontracting’ workshop will inform an ICC-led industry roundtable event planned for June 2026, with the aim of identifying opportunities to improve competence. 

Remuneration

Members are appointed to the ICC on a voluntary basis and are reimbursed for necessary travel and accommodation costs when attending meetings.

Members are expected to spend around 8 days per year on ICC work and are supported by BSR officials.

Conflicts of interest

Members are required to declare any potential or perceived interests at the time of their appointment and to update the chair or vice-chair of any changes.

A register of conflict of interest declarations by members is held and kept current by BSR, who act as the secretariat for the ICC and its working groups.

Procedures

The committee advises BSR on industry competence. Its primary functions include:

• monitoring and advising on industry competence
• guiding and facilitating competence improvement in the built environment industry
• providing public guidance on assessing industry competence
• conducting analysis and research

Advice from the committee is given to BSR through papers and during meetings. A process for submitting formal advice to BSR as a paper has been agreed by the ICC. The process also sets out how BSR should request advice from the ICC.

The ICC welcomes issues raised by external parties and encourages members to submit requests for advice by email to bsrsecretariat@buildingsafety.gov.uk.

Annex 1: Schedule of ICC engagement events 2025 to 2026

Event	Date
University College of Estates Management	9 May 2025
Get it Right Initiative	14 May 2025
Installer Show	25 June 2025
Fire Sector Confederation	20 August 2025
Industry Committee for Emergency Lighting (part of The Lighting Industry Association)	25 August 2025
Westminster Insight’s Building Safety Conference	15 September 2025
TrustMark and Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) Retrofit Event	14 October 2025
National Home Improvement Council Parliamentary Reception	15 October 2025
National Home Improvement Council Panel discussion on Competence	15 October 2025
Building Engineering Services Association Conference	16 October 2025
Building Safety Regulator Shadow Board	3 November 2025
TrustMark Event with DESNZ	11 November 2025
Fire Conference	13 November 2025
Retrofit in Focus Event	18 November 2025
IAA Conference	27 November 2025
Built Environment Forum for the Universities Sector	30 January 2026
Finance and Insurance Roundtable	12 March 2026