The UK surveying industry is facing growing pressure as regulatory obligations increase faster than the profession’s ability to respond, according to analysis from Property Inspect.
Demand for competent surveying, spanning quantity surveying, building control, land and geomatics, continues to rise, yet the pipeline of qualified professionals is failing to keep pace.
At the same time, new rules under the Building Safety Act and retrofit frameworks are raising the evidential standard required for project approvals.
The latest market survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) reported a net balance of –3% for workloads in the second quarter of 2025, with just 17% of respondents expecting growth over the next year.
PLANNING DELAYS
Infrastructure was the only clear bright spot, with energy projects (+34%) and water and sewage (+27%) driving optimism.
But 61% of firms cited planning and regulatory delays as their main obstacle, while 39% pointed to labour shortages, particularly in surveying.
The Building Safety Regulator has also emerged as a choke point. Between October 2023 and March 2025 it received 2,108 Gateway applications but approved only 338 – a 16% approval rate – with average decision times stretching to 25 weeks, more than double the 12-week target.
EVIDENCE PINCH POINT
Siân Hemming-Metcalfe, operations director at Property Inspect, says: “Whether you’re a QS, a building surveyor, or a geomatics specialist, the pinch point isn’t people alone – it’s evidence.
“If inspections ship with Golden-Thread-ready data – geolocated media, material provenance and PAS-aligned templates – approvals move faster, re-visits fall, and chartered resources spend more time surveying and less time repackaging photos for submissions.
“If the industry frames the challenge purely as a labour shortage, the solution will always be ‘find more surveyors’ – a slow, expensive fix.”
SUBMISSION READY PACKS
And she adds: “The faster win is enabling the existing workforce to produce submission-ready evidence packs as standard. That means templated capture, structured metadata, and integrated reporting systems that work across disciplines.
“Surveying capacity is not defined by headcount alone. It’s defined by the volume of compliant, decision-ready information those professionals can deliver. In that sense, ‘evidence-ready’ surveys, reports, and inspections represent capacity – and right now, we need more of them.”
The shortage of capacity has already had visible effects, with homebuilding in London falling to a 16-year low in the first quarter of 2025, at just 1,210 starts compared with a target of 88,000 a year.
