The Building Safety Act is changing how the UK builds. Is the rest of the industry paying attention?
Are you prepared for what’s next in AECO?
Regulatory change rarely arrives quietly in construction. But the UK's Building Safety Act is doing something more significant than adding compliance requirements to an already complex delivery environment. In an episode of Bridging the Gap: The Conversation — 2026 Reality Check, Ian Besford, Global Digital Delivery Leader at Mott MacDonald, explained what the Act means for project delivery in practice, why it's harder to price than it looks, and why the rest of the AEC industry should be watching closely.
What the Building Safety Act actually requires
What is the Building Safety Act in the UK? The Building Safety Act came into force in the UK following the Grenfell Tower disaster and represents the most significant overhaul of building safety regulation in a generation. For construction teams, the most operationally significant change is the introduction of formal sign-off of construction-level information before works start on site for buildings defined as high-risk, primarily higher-risk residential buildings of 18 metres or more, or seven or more storeys.
In practical terms, coordination work that has traditionally slipped to site, resolved by specialist trade contractors or subcontractors during construction, now has to be completed during the design process. Before anyone breaks ground.
"In the UK, we're currently coming to terms with the Building Safety Act, which has introduced formal sign-off of construction-level information before works start on site for high-risk buildings. A lot of the stuff that might have been done in the design office about coordination has sort of slipped to being done on site. That sort of detail now has to be resolved during the design process while you're actually doing it before you get to site." Ian Besford, Global Digital Delivery Leader, Mott MacDonald
For firms that have already invested in robust BIM coordination workflows, this is largely a formalization of what they were already doing. For firms that have relied on resolving coordination issues on site, it represents a significant operational change and a cost that needs to be priced in from the outset.
Invest in coordination upfront, reduce rework downstream
The instinctive reaction to more upfront coordination is that it means more work. More time in the design phase. More cost before a spade goes in the ground. And in the short term, that's true. But the total effort on a project doesn't necessarily increase. It redistributes.
"It feels like more work, but actually the outcome should be when you get to site there's less rework and less coordination required to do. So the overall effort on the project could be less." Ian Besford, Global Digital Delivery Leader, Mott MacDonald
This is the case that BIM advocates have been making for years: invest in coordination upfront, reduce rework downstream. The Building Safety Act doesn't change that equation. It enforces it, at least for the categories of buildings it covers.
The firms that have already built that capability are well positioned. The firms that haven't are facing a compliance requirement and a capability gap at the same time, which is a difficult position on a live project pipeline.
What this means in practice:
- Front-loading coordination increases design phase cost but reduces site phase cost and rework
- Firms with established BIM coordination workflows have a structural advantage under the Act
- The gateway process creates accountability checkpoints that reward early investment in coordination quality
The commercial problem nobody wants to talk about
There is a challenge that sits beneath the surface of most Building Safety Act conversations, and it's one that any design firm or consultant working on in-scope projects needs to grapple with directly.
If you price the upfront coordination required by the Act into your design fees, and your competitors don't, you risk losing the bid. Clients focused on keeping costs down will favor the lower fee, even if that fee doesn't reflect the real cost of delivering a compliant project.
"The challenge for us is if you start to price all that in while you're putting your design fees together, and other people don't price putting that in, then you don't win the job in the first place. So the only way that you actually get the benefit of the site coordination is by legislating it. Then that's a common playing field for everybody from a design point of view." Ian Besford, Global Digital Delivery Leader, Mott MacDonald
This is the level playing field argument, and it's one of the most important things the Building Safety Act does beyond its immediate safety intent. By legislating the requirement for upfront coordination on high-risk buildings, it removes the commercial incentive to underprice it. If everyone has to do it, everyone has to price it.
For design firms and consultants, the practical implication is clear. Firms that have already invested in BIM coordination capability can price the work accurately because they know what it costs. Firms building that capability from scratch under compliance pressure will struggle to do both at once.
What this means in practice:
- Underpricing coordination to win bids creates compliance risk under the Act for in-scope buildings
- The Act creates a level playing field on coordination cost, firms that have invested in BIM capability can price accurately and competitively
- Building Safety Act compliance is becoming a procurement consideration for clients selecting design and construction partners
Why this matters beyond the UK
The pattern the Act represents, legislation creating the conditions for digital delivery to become standard practice, is not unique to the UK. Similar dynamics are playing out in different forms across multiple markets. BIM mandates on public projects across Europe. Infrastructure requirements tied to digital delivery in parts of the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Owner-driven digital requirements filtering down to design and construction teams across North America.
The 2026 Bridging the Gap report found that technology integration has been the number one challenge facing AEC firms for two consecutive years. One of the most reliable ways that challenge gets resolved historically is through external pressure, whether from regulation, sophisticated owners, or market competition reaching a tipping point where digital capability becomes a prerequisite rather than a differentiator.
The Building Safety Act is the clearest current example of that pressure being applied through legislation. For firms outside the UK, it's a preview of a direction of travel that is likely to reach their own markets.
"Perhaps the real issue is how we encourage people to be curious, and to get comfortable not knowing how they're going to do things next, and wanting to learn how to do it in a different way." Ian Besford, Global Digital Delivery Leader, Mott MacDonald
That curiosity, about regulation, about digital delivery, about what the market will require in three to five years, is what separates firms that get ahead of change from the ones that respond to it under pressure.
What firms should be doing now
For UK firms working on high-risk buildings, the practical starting point is ensuring that BIM coordination workflows are robust enough to support the gateway process. Coordination needs to be documented, signed off, and evidenced at the design stage rather than resolved on site.
For firms outside the UK, the Building Safety Act is worth monitoring not as an immediate compliance requirement but as a signal. The regulatory direction of travel is toward more accountability, more documentation, and more upfront coordination. Firms that build that capability now, ahead of external pressure, will be better positioned commercially and operationally when that pressure arrives in their own markets.
Revizto's Collaboration Hub supports that process, giving project teams a single platform for model access, issue management, and coordination sign-off across the design and construction lifecycle.
To find out how it supports Building Safety Act compliance workflows, talk to one of the Revizto team today.
FAQs
The Building Safety Act is UK legislation introduced following the Grenfell Tower disaster that overhauled building safety regulation across England. For construction teams, the most significant operational change is the introduction of a gateway process requiring formal sign-off of construction-level design information before works start on site for high-risk buildings, defined primarily as residential buildings of 18 metres or more, or seven or more storeys.
The Act requires that coordination work previously resolved on site must now be completed and documented during the design phase for in-scope buildings. This creates a formal requirement for robust BIM coordination workflows. Teams need to be able to demonstrate that design conflicts have been identified and resolved before construction begins, which is difficult to evidence without digital coordination tools.
