Jacob Austin 00:00:00 Hale Jacob Austin here from QS.Zone. And welcome to episode 109 of the Subcontractors Blueprint, the show where subcontractors will learn how to ensure profitability, improve cash flow and grow their business. Today's episode, number 109, is all about the housing pipeline in England and the practical tactics that SME subcontractors can use to secure real work. So we'll dig in in just a second. But if you're new to the show, please do subscribe for more user friendly advice on all things subcontracting. So let's talk big picture. England's housing agenda is dominated by headlines pledging to deliver millions of homes within this parliament specifically 1.5 million homes. The direction of travel is clear. Ministers want to put builders, not blockers, first, and they've promised to overhaul planning and unlock stalled sites. That's the official line with new mandatory local housing targets. A revised national planning framework, supposed extra planning officers and specific programs to hopefully unstick the system. But since the Labour government took office in 2024, the number of new homes recorded in England has fallen year on year, with one report suggesting a 10% drop in the rate of housebuilding.
Jacob Austin 00:01:40 There has, however, been an increase in the number of applications being sought for planning permission, but it does take a long time for housing projects to move from planning through to completion, and industry experts are suggesting that the current pace of decision making will delay construction for years, making it really difficult for the government to achieve its own targets. The government, on the other hand, are saying that small and medium sites are being pushed forward faster and that local authorities are being pushed to favour SMEs and projects that are going to feature MMC led housing construction, with a view to speeding up the output. When projects do land on site. On the flip side of that, though, high rise residential is still being held up significantly by the building safety regulator BSR gateways, although some tweaks are supposedly planned in coming and environmental factors are causing other blockages, which the government is trying to mitigate with further central funding. And so whilst there's been no meaningful increase at this point and arguably a decrease in the number of completions, the government is expecting faster progress to occur later in their term.
Jacob Austin 00:02:51 Current proposals from the government and guidance issued this year are to streamline minor housing applications, which are for up to nine homes, so that decisions made by planning officers can be made without a full committee, and then easing on the biodiversity burden on those small sites. Then medium sites, which are 10 to 49 homes, will also see reduced red tape and hopefully reduce costs in some places. At the same time, the broader planning overhaul sets a mandatory local housing targets and further funding has been made available to add up to 300 extra planning officers. So all of this should see planning decisions speed up to, in theory, hit this 1.5 million milestone. So for you as a subcontractor, perhaps you're seeing less major house building happening, but you could expect to see more, say, 5 to 50 house schemes coming through the planning system, especially if they're on brownfield and what we're now calling greenbelt land. Greenbelt is referring to poor quality areas of greenbelt that have been previously protected by greenbelt rules, but are no longer serving the purpose of reducing urban sprawl, and it does also cover certain elements of brownfield sites, such as disused petrol stations, car parks and bits of scrubland, which are lower quality greenbelt areas that aren't really adding an environmental benefit.
Jacob Austin 00:04:18 So if the plan goes as intended, then you should start seeing approvals for this kind of land arriving with less political hiccups. That means that local SME developers, who of course, depend on subcontractors, are likely to be the biggest source of work. So this is where those services that track planning approvals will start being your friends. If you're able to set alerts for your patch to see when small sites are granted. This can be your easy in congratulating the developer and offering your services with a short capability note, and perhaps a case study or two when you're seeing reserved matters and discharge of conditions lists. This is usually the sign that the site is gearing up for a start, and you can start looking to get involved. And perhaps if you've got the time, you can review some of the submissions and try and offer some early build ability advice as a marketing tool, and also as a means to demonstrating your abilities. The building safety regulator is still causing impact for higher risk buildings, particularly high rise residential, which understandably is seeing the most scrutiny.
Jacob Austin 00:05:23 This has brought significant delays to gateway two, which is just before the work starts. Industry updates in 2025 are reporting average approval times of many months, and anecdotal reports of 40 weeks plus for some schemes. Meanwhile, the government are acknowledging the need to speed the process up if they want to deliver on their targets. Reportedly, tweaks are happening to the BSR processes and we should start seeing these things speed up. But I'm not holding my breath because I'd have to hold it for around 22 weeks on average, according to some reputable briefings for a gateway to approval. Understandably, this is delaying work between a ward two main contractors on a design and build scheme through to them actually delivering it on site. So if you're tendering for high rise fitout and envelope packages, you are likely to see these slip on your pipeline chart. Competence, traceability and quality procedures are now huge must haves for the industry, and this is where you need to buckle down to help you succeed. The BSR is criticising contractors for poor quality submissions, and so main contractors will favour subcontractors, particularly if they're designing a facade solution who can evidence conformance with regulations early or first time.
Jacob Austin 00:06:44 This is where you can generate yourself a USP, sell the quality of your design and publish a one pager on your BSR aligned workflows showing traceability, installation, sign offs, photographic records of complete work, and your digital O&M handover that encompasses all of the above. You also need to be cautious if you're taking on high risk work, particularly if you're going to be delivering design as part of your order. You need to clearly clarify program risk around the gateways and agree extension of time mechanisms for when the program inevitably slips. You also need to consider records for any upfront work, because we're now talking of being delayed before we get to site, rather than just disrupted in the course of your normal work. So with all of the above, it's fair to say that the public pipeline isn't exactly exploding out of the starting blocks. But the affordable homes budget continues to provide additional funding, with further increases committed for 2026 and 2027. So the government is pushing new homes through Homes England as its delivery arm, and Homes England is pushing support for MMC and for SMEs.
Jacob Austin 00:08:00 So being an SME is a selling point in its own right these days. As well as that, Holmes, England's 2023 to 28 plan is specifically pushing for MMC projects, particularly where it improves innovation, productivity or sustainability. And we're seeing this in the form of joint venture funding, which requires some form of MMC as a condition of securing it. So this is a good time to be upskilling your workforce to work hand in hand with MMC projects. That might mean bricklayers that are okay with working on timber frame projects that know the foibles of working on pre erected scaffold, of working up to junctions that have already been set out and built by somebody else, and windows that are already in situ, that they need to then build up to allowing some expansion room. These aren't difficult things, but they're necessary for MMC projects. If you've got that expertise in-house, then you can use that again as a selling point. Perhaps develop some case studies that back your own abilities to work hand in hand with those FMC installers highlighting different systems that you've worked alongside? I also mentioned SMEs and procurement bodies targeting local authorities are pushing for SMEs both to work directly under them as framework partners, but also for larger contractors to place the bulk of their works packages with SMEs subcontractors.
Jacob Austin 00:09:28 Alongside that, the government has also extended the Home Building Fund, with large tranches of funding earmarked for SME house builders to try and get those small sites that we've already mentioned off the ground. So small and medium sites benefit from the 2025 reforms, and these are going to be good bets for fairly near term. If you like. Demand where planning officers are empowered to make their own decisions, displacing committees to shrink lead times down. You might consider looking at the Homes England Land portal. This is a site where Homes England publishes land that it wants to sell within the next six months or so, but also land that has been recently sold, which again, is going to act as a lead for a potential client. And if this scheme appears in your area, then you can find out who to contact and who to sell your SME credentials to. Of course, government backed work comes with government paperwork, and so you're likely to see pre-qualification requirements heading your way from any potential client working on those sites. And so with build UK's Common Assessment standard, CAS that I've spoken about previously on the show, now featuring a mandatory building safety section, you're likely to see main contractors requesting additional information from you to confirm your capabilities within this calendar year.
Jacob Austin 00:10:51 If you're building work that you know is going to be using government funding or public adjacent, then CAS is an absolute must have. But once you've achieved it, you need to get this front and centre to make sure that everybody knows you're compliant. Lined. As I mentioned before, Homes England is encouraging its partners to deliver homes using MMC, and some funding criteria are now explicitly requiring MMC elements. So upskilling your workforce to be able to work alongside MMC is going to be a must. But also selling that you can do it, that you can work alongside category one volumetric installs or open and close panel framing, or you've interfaced with MEP pods. If you've been there and got the t shirt, tell everybody to help sell your services. A lot of government backed work is using the NEC suite of contracts, so if you're chasing Homes England or local authority funded work, you're likely to see these kind of subcontracts heading your way. That means you need to get away with the terminology. It is a completely different set of conditions of buzzwords and mechanisms to get your hands on money and time for changes, so you need to get to know these.
Jacob Austin 00:12:06 The good news is with the knack is it's written in pretty plain English that you can follow through from start to finish. There's no flicking between ten pages to work out what one clause means. It all works in logical fashion, which makes it really user friendly to use. But in order to protect yourself, you do need to understand the particular rules of those contracts. Now, I've done plenty of episodes on NBC for you to follow through and brush up your skills on. Good news for you, but nothing beats actually reading the document. I'm not going to say it's an enjoyable read, but it's one that you don't need a thesaurus and a strong black coffee to get through. Another interesting factor of government backed work is that the 2023 Procurement Act is requiring a lot of contracts to push 30 day payment terms right the way down through the supply chain. They also introduce spot checks on large public contracts to make sure it's enforced. The government have produced guidance notes for you to refer to, showing where you can expect to benefit from 30 day payment terms on quite a large range of public sector contracts.
Jacob Austin 00:13:15 That's genuinely good news for subcontractors, because obviously cash flow is the lifeblood of the industry, and it's something that you can easily question your main contractor on if you know that they're working on government. Back to work. The good news is with these frameworks is that they will often fund meet the buyer type events to help main contractors get in touch with new subcontractors, to source leads, and to start building relationships. Main contractors are often eager to meet new supply chain members and recruit them to their own list. They need you to deliver work and construction is still a people business, so building that face to face familiarity with people who are going to place orders can go a long way to getting you enquiries. And then in front of hopefully the people who are going to be new clients. Another place to look for leads lead are major frameworks and development frameworks. Frameworks are essentially a pre-approved panel of contractors who can deliver programs of work, usually for public sector or big developers, when major frameworks are awarded. It's like a pipeline within itself.
Jacob Austin 00:14:23 It often comes with an expected value and a time frame to deliver that value. For instance, the regional Housing framework in procure in the North of England, this was announced with £200 million pipeline to be delivered over four years. It's also split into different lots, including small projects for under ten homes, and this actually ended up appointing 80% SME contractors, with many of them being local to the framework itself. That does tell you two things. One, frameworks aren't just for the big boys, as they're often including SME friendly elements within them. And two, once the framework is live, those contractors that have been named will be hunting for subcontractors to deliver the work for them. And whilst there's no guarantees. The contractors gaining places on those frameworks should be seeing a fairly steady stream of inquiries coming out to them, and therefore a steady stream of work that you might be able to get involved in. I'm curious to see exactly what the government's current mandate for housebuilding is going to deliver. There has been speak of improving the housing shortage for many, many years now, and part of me wonders that whilst the government is interested in reducing the housing shortage, some of the funding organisations that wield a lot of political power have got very little interest in that happening.
Jacob Austin 00:15:46 Let's face it, banks own a large portion of the real estate in this country, whether directly or more indirectly, through mortgage lending to private owners. Now, this might be me being cynical, but if I was a bank and I'd got half £1 billion set out there in real estate that I've lent money against, would I really want to reduce the price of those assets by flooding the market with affordable homes. I don't think I would. And then when you see statements from companies such as Lloyds Banking Group who are actively trying to become one of the biggest private landlords in the UK through its subsidiary company, with the goal of owning 50,000 rental homes by 2030. Curiously, the government has pushed out a lot of legislation which is unfriendly to landlords, forcing them out of the market at the same time as a bank is buying multiple thousands of properties a year. Now, I might be adding two and two together and getting seven, but I suspect some political forces are at play here, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same is going to happen to our housing market, and that the big promised up curve in development never quite comes to fruition because of other political pressures, probably from the same kind of organisation.
Jacob Austin 00:17:07 It remains to be seen whether the government will meet its targets. But hopefully, in listening to today's episode, you've picked up at least one avenue to find new housebuilding work. And so, as I call it, a day to day, I'll remind you of my mission to help the million SME contractors working out there in our industry. If you've taken some value away from today's show, then I'd love it if you'd share the show and pass that value on to someone else who'd benefit from hearing it. And of course, subscribe yourself if you haven't already. And thanks for tuning in. If you like what you've heard and you want to learn more, then please do find us at www.QS.Zone for more information or you can check us out on all your favourite socials again at QS.Zone. Thanks all! I've been Jacob Austin and you've been awesome.
