The Building Safety Act — What It Means for Trades (2026)

Where the Act Came From

The Building Safety Act 2022 was the legislative response to the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017, which killed 72 people and exposed deep failures in how buildings were designed, built and managed. Dame Judith Hackitt's independent review found a system that was fragmented, where responsibility was unclear, competence was patchy and nobody held the full picture of how a building was actually constructed. The Act overhauls building safety regulation from end to end and is designed to make sure those failures cannot happen again.

A central part of that overhaul was the creation of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), set up within the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The BSR is the new authority overseeing the safety of higher-risk buildings, driving up competence across the industry, and acting as the building control body for the highest-risk projects. It has real enforcement powers, and it has been actively using them.

Higher-Risk Buildings and the Strictest Regime

The toughest parts of the new regime apply to Higher-Risk Buildings (HRBs). In England, an HRB is a building that is at least 18m tall, or has 7 or more storeys, and contains at least 2 residential units. If a project meets that threshold, it enters a much more demanding framework with named dutyholders, formal approval stages, and ongoing duties once people are living there.

During design and construction, HRBs must pass through three statutory checkpoints known as the "gateways":

• Gateway one (planning): fire safety is considered at the planning application stage, with the fire statement reviewed before planning permission is granted.
• Gateway two (pre-construction / building control approval): the BSR must approve the detailed design before construction can start. You cannot begin building work until you have this approval — there is no "start now, sort the paperwork later" option.
• Gateway three (completion): the BSR checks the finished building against the approved design before it can be registered and occupied.

Once an HRB is occupied, it must be registered with the BSR, and the Accountable Person must obtain a Building Assessment Certificate demonstrating that building safety risks are being properly managed. The whole point is that responsibility runs from the drawing board through to people living in the building — there is no gap where safety falls between the cracks.

The New Dutyholder Roles — and Why They Apply to Everyone

One of the most important changes, and the one most trades will actually feel, is the introduction of dutyholder roles under the Building Regulations. The language deliberately mirrors the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM) that the industry already knows. There are five roles:

• Client: the person the work is carried out for. They must make sure the right arrangements, time and resources are in place for compliance.
• Principal Designer: on projects with more than one designer, they plan, manage and monitor the design work to make sure it complies with the Building Regulations.
• Principal Contractor: on projects with more than one contractor, they plan, manage and monitor the construction work to make sure it complies.
• Designers: anyone preparing or modifying a design, who must design so that the work complies with the Building Regulations.
• Contractors: anyone carrying out the building work, who must make sure the work they do complies.

Here is the critical point: these dutyholder roles and the competence requirements that come with them apply to ALL building work covered by the Building Regulations — not just HRBs. Every project, including ordinary domestic jobs, now has dutyholders. Even a single builder on a small extension is a contractor (and may be the principal contractor and client's appointee) with legal duties to deliver compliant work.

Competence — The Requirement That Touches Every Trade

Underpinning the dutyholder regime is a hard legal requirement around competence. Two things are now law on every project:

• Everyone carrying out building work must be competent for the work they do — that means the right skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours for the task in front of them.
• Dutyholders must check the competence of anyone they appoint. If you take on a subcontractor, you have a legal duty to satisfy yourself that they are competent before they start.

In practice this means the days of hiring whoever is cheapest and available, without checking what they can actually do, are over. If you appoint someone who turns out not to be competent and the work fails to comply, that is now your problem as the appointing dutyholder. Equally, you need to be able to demonstrate your own competence when someone appoints you.

The Golden Thread of Information

For Higher-Risk Buildings, the Act introduces the concept of the "golden thread" of information. This means keeping accurate, accessible, up-to-date digital information about a building's design, construction and ongoing management, held in a structured way so the right people can find the right information when they need it. The golden thread must be created and maintained from the start of design, handed over at each stage, and kept current throughout the building's life.

The thinking behind it is simple: at Grenfell, nobody could reliably say what materials were in the building or how it had been changed over the years. The golden thread is meant to make sure that information always exists, is trustworthy, and is available to those who need it — from the BSR to the people responsible for keeping residents safe.

What Most Trades Will Actually Feel

Most contractors will never set foot on a Higher-Risk Building. So what changes day to day? Quite a lot, and most of it on ordinary projects:

• Stronger competence requirements: you must be able to show you are competent for the work, and check competence when you appoint others.
• More documentation and record-keeping: expect to keep clearer records of what you did, what materials and products you used, and how you confirmed compliance.
• Building control approval changes: the building control process has been tightened, with more rigour around approvals, inspections and sign-off.
• A duty to report: the regime puts more emphasis on raising and reporting safety concerns rather than staying quiet to keep a job moving.
• Accountability through the supply chain: responsibility now flows up and down the chain of designers and contractors, even on everyday work — passing the buck is no longer an option.

Construction Products and Longer Liability

The Act also reaches into the wider system. There is a strengthened framework around construction products, aimed at making sure products marketed and used in buildings are safe and perform as claimed — a direct response to the failures around cladding and insulation products exposed after Grenfell. As a contractor, the practical takeaway is to know what you are installing and keep the evidence.

Crucially for liability, the Act extends the time during which claims can be brought. Under changes to the Defective Premises Act 1972, the limitation period for claims relating to defective dwellings was extended dramatically — up to 30 years for work completed before the changes took effect, and 15 years for work completed afterwards. In other words, the legal tail on your work is far longer than it used to be. A job you finish today could in principle expose you to a claim well over a decade from now, which makes good records and demonstrable competence a form of long-term protection, not just paperwork.

Quick Reference: The Five Dutyholder Roles

Practical Steps for Your Business

You don't need to be a building safety lawyer to comply, but you do need to get a few things right. Here is where to put your effort:

• Evidence your competence: keep your trade cards, qualifications, scheme memberships and CPD up to date and easy to produce. Being able to show competence on demand is now a commercial advantage as well as a legal need.
• Check who you appoint: before you take on a subcontractor, satisfy yourself they're competent and keep a note of how you checked. If they fall short, it reflects on you as the appointing dutyholder.
• Keep good records: document what you installed, which products and materials you used, and how you confirmed the work complied. Given the longer liability periods, store these somewhere you can still find them years later.
• Understand your role on each project: know whether you're a contractor, principal contractor or designer on a given job, and what that role requires of you.
• Raise concerns: if something isn't right, report it. The regime expects safety issues to be flagged, not buried.

The consequences of getting it wrong have sharpened considerably. The BSR and local building control bodies have stronger enforcement powers, breaches of the Building Regulations can carry significant penalties, and serious failures can lead to prosecution. Add the extended limitation periods and the message is clear: cutting corners is a long-term liability that can follow you and your business for years.

The Bottom Line

The Building Safety Act 2022 reframes building safety as a shared, traceable responsibility that runs through everyone who touches a project. Even if you never work on a Higher-Risk Building, the competence requirements, dutyholder duties and longer liability periods apply to your everyday work in England. The contractors who thrive under this regime will be the ones who treat evidence of competence and solid record-keeping as part of the job rather than an afterthought — because in 2026, your paperwork is your protection.