The government has published its long-awaited Industrial Strategy, which sets out how - over the next 10 years - it plans to direct investment to accelerate UK business growth and where it will focus its economic support and partnership efforts.
The Industrial Strategy identifies eight sectors as having the greatest potential over the next decade, each with a critical role to play in supporting economic security, net zero targets, and regional growth.
Showing its importance to the UK economic landscape and growth targets, the profession of architecture is unique in having a foot in two of the crucial sectors – Professional and Business Services (PBS) and the Creative Industries – and throughout the Strategy's consultation process, RIBA has held continual discussions with ministers and civil servants from different government departments.
The Strategy is large and wide-ranging, but these are the headlines from the Strategy that will interest architects. The government is intent on:
- Promoting free and fair trade through strengthened international partnerships and new trade agreements;
- Reforming the skills and employment support system to build a pipeline of talent in priority sectors;
- Establishing a new Global Talent Taskforce to support high-growth sectors and attract skilled individuals to the UK;
- Removing planning barriers and accelerating decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects;
- Supporting the growth of world-leading creative industry clusters across the UK;
- Strengthening connections within and between city regions and clusters to maximise innovation, academic collaboration, and growth;
- Driving increased tech adoption and AI integration across the Professional and Business Services sector;
- Attracting private capital and supporting co-investment with industry through targeted financial interventions;
- Using government procurement to strengthen domestic supply chains and support high-quality local jobs;
- Simplifying government processes to speed up investment decisions;
- Launching a new Business Growth Service to streamline SME access to support, tackle late payments, and reform procurement processes to make it easier for SMEs to secure government contracts;
- Introducing clear metrics to monitor and evaluate policy effectiveness of the Strategy.
What is significant about the Professional and Business Services sector?
The UK’s PBS sector is the second largest exporter of PBS services in the world after the US. Based on current trends, the value of PBS is expected to more than double to £322 billion over the next decade, which explains why the government says it has chosen to put this area at the heart of its industrial policy for the first time.
PBS is at an inflection point, says the Industrial Strategy’s sector plan, with Artificial Intelligence and new technologies set to improve productivity and disrupt long established systems and ways of doing business.
What did the Strategy say about planning?
The Strategy acknowledges that delays and complexities in the planning system have been a barrier to investment in infrastructure.
During ongoing discussions with multiple government departments, RIBA has consistently highlighted that planning departments have experienced one of the most severe cuts in terms of real terms budget allocation in recent years. To guarantee that new developments are high-quality, sustainable, and accessible, RIBA has argued that extra funding is needed if the performance of planning departments and quality of developments are to be improved. Extra funds would provide an obvious boost to resource, but also enable access to specialist design knowledge and expertise, an important part of the solution. Data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) indicates, for instance, that 54% of local authorities reported skills gaps in urban design and architecture.
In the Strategy, the government states that its revised National Planning Policy Framework seeks to support growth in the eight priority sectors when it consults on a set of national policies to guide planning decisions later this year.
The Strategy also outlines a range of fast-tracking measures, some of which have been previously announced, which the government has committed to introducing. These measures include:
- Reducing the pre-application period for major infrastructure projects from two years to 12 months by eliminating excessive consultation requirements;
- Initiating a call for evidence to explore expanding permitted development rights, aiming to accelerate construction of national infrastructure like fixed and mobile networks and electricity networks;
- Aiming to make planning decisions on called-in applications within 13 weeks, ensuring faster approvals for high-priority projects like solar farms, data centres, housing, and transport, supported by a strategic planning framework;
- Improving connectivity by investing in new transfer infrastructure, with the allocation of funds and grants to help transport connectivity in smaller cities, towns, and rural areas;
- Allocating additional resource to local planning authorities (LPAs) by funding 300 new planning officers, allowing local flexibility in planning application fees, and accelerating digitalisation. User-friendly software like PlanX has been developed to speed up decisions, reducing application errors and planning-related calls by up to 60%;
- Implementing a Nature Restoration Fund, where developers can make a single payment to identify and meet their environmental obligations related to protected sites and species.
How will the Strategy affect small businesses?
According to the Strategy, the government will introduce a new Business Growth Service in summer 2025, which will aim to streamline access to government support, advice, and funding for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs).
The Business Growth service will comprise a new website, which will act as a single online platform. The service aims to make essential information more accessible and to simplify the digital interface for businesses, as well as explore an extension of GOV.UK One Login to offer a more personalised, data-driven interface, saving businesses time and money.
Additional reforms in this area include digitisation in local planning authorities and enhanced access to finance from the British Business Bank (BBB) and UK Export Finance (UKEF).
What are the programmes that will encourage Professional and Business Services?
The recent Spending Review included over £150million to fund five transformative programmes to encourage Professional and Business Services (PBS) innovation and technology adoption. One of these will be the creation of five new PBS Hubs in “high potential” city regions. Regional practices can expect to see Hubs launch in Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, the West Midlands, and the Edinburgh-Glasgow Central Belt.
Each Hub will be tailored to support both national and local PBS priorities, says the plan, including the adoption of digital technology and AI. There will be a complementary national AI Skills Hub. The first new technology adoption programme will be a pilot in the North of England (no Hub is specified).
The government says it is working with regulators to support the development of digital and regulatory “sandboxes” – closed development testing environments – that will support collaboration between regulators, (software) developers and technology providers, and the first of these will focus on property, the sector identified as having a particular readiness for innovation. The initiative will launch as PropTech.
The government sees PropTech having the potential to “transform the planning, housing, land, and infrastructure markets, and play a pivotal role in improving the way real estate is developed, managed, and transacted, increasing transparency, efficiency, and productivity.”
Property has also been identified as the testing ground for a Smart Data programme for PBS, where consumer data would be shared between PBS firms across the sector, with the early focus appearing to be on house purchase and conveyancing, although the plan says local authorities and housing providers will be involved.
The sector plan reminds everyone that the UK and the EU recently agreed to establish dialogues on Recognition of Professional Qualifications (RPQ) and short-term business mobility. It specifically refers to the Architects Registration Board as an organisation that can expect to get government support to help negotiate further RPQ agreements, suggesting that a return to a mutual recognition agreement (MRA) with the EU is at least on the agenda.
For more than a decade, RIBA has also continued to emphasise the need for an MRA with the EU, arguing that it would support revenue growth from the union, which last year accounted for 47% of international fees generated by RIBA Chartered Practices.
What did the Strategy say about skills and talent pools?
The UK government says it is committed to reforming the skills and employment support system to build a pipeline of talent in its eight priority sectors, including Professional and Business Service and Creative Industries.
The focus on skills development is welcome. However, RIBA believes that the decision to withdraw funding for most Level 7 apprenticeships from January 2026 is misguided and disproportionally impacts the profession.
RIBA President, Muyiwa Oki, says: “We’ve worked closely with the government and parliamentarians to promote the value of Level 7 architecture apprenticeships, but our work is not over; we continue to advocate for architecture apprenticeships and the value they bring to the profession and society.”
RIBA is now calling on the government to:
- Conduct a full impact assessment of the consequences for the architecture profession and wider built environment sector, which would provide the evidence base necessary to justify or reconsider the cuts, inform targeted exemptions, and support longer-term policy; as well as understand the knock-on effects on the sustainability of Level 6 apprenticeships;
- Extend the transition arrangements so universities can pivot to new models. A phased transition would give learners and employers the clarity they need, while allowing Government time to monitor and assess the impact of the policy change;
- Allow those who have completed a Level 6 apprenticeship to receive undergraduate student finance to continue their studies.
What’s in the sector plan for the Creative Industries?
Creative Industries are regarded as another of the UK’s success stories, already contributing £124 billion to the economy. The sector plan promises increased business investment alongside support for innovation, skills development, access to finance, exports and regional growth. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will more than double targeted funding for Creative Industries by 2035.
While the PBS sector is to get more investment-focused on “Hubs”, the government wants to see investment in this area directed particularly at “Creative Clusters”, which are seen as the best locations for collaborative R&D efforts. The six Mayoral Strategic Authorities, for instance, will be given resources to catalyse business investment in identified clusters.
Architects can look out for a new Creative Industries R&D strategy later this year, which will come with revised guidance on R&D tax relief, particularly where R&D can be classed as interdisciplinary innovation.
Within this sector, the government also says it will increase the number of creative trade missions and markets accessed, with more funding to boost exports across major markets in the EU and the United States and fast-growing markets such as the Gulf and Asia-Pacific.
Text by Neal Morris and Paul Hirons. This is a professional feature edited by the RIBA Practice team. Send us your feedback and ideas.
RIBA Core Curriculum topic: Legal, regulatory and statutory compliance.
As part of the flexible RIBA CPD programme, professional features count as microlearning. See further information on the updated RIBA CPD core curriculum and on fulfilling your CPD requirements as a RIBA Chartered Member.
