48 TRACKING HOUSEBUILDERS’ STRATEGIES FOR COMPLIANCE WITH THE FUTURE HOMES STANDARD INDUSTRY VIEWFINDER


SURVEY FINDINGS


Having looked at housebuilders’ anticipated issues and readiness previously, our questions ranged across a selection of issues that homed in on initial reactions to the standard, as published in March 2026. We asked respondents how they felt about their awareness, knowledge and preparedness for the FHS in practice, given that it had offi cially launched in arch. oweer, gien that it comes into force for new schemes in March 2027, how prepared were our respondent housebuilders? The answers were not conclusively positive, with a


signifi cant  saying they were not ery prepared, or ‘not prepared at all.’ However, a reassuring 21% said they were ‘very prepared,’ having witnessed an extended industry consultation process, although how they remained quite so confi dent gien the lac of the essential ome nergy odel software for designing schemes, is somewhat hard to fathom. It was a similarly mixed picture around the understanding of the requirements of the FHS, for example the key combination of  of ground fl oor area , and an air source heat pump or 4th generation heat network, together with air tightness to  mmhr, d direct mechanical entilation, and potentially Waste Water Heat Recovery. Unfortunately only 14% said they ‘completely understand’ the requirements, although 40% did say they ‘mainly understand,’ with a much lower 27% admitting they only ‘partially understand’ them.


COST


INCREASES & DELIVERY RISKS


Although awareness was limited on the practical requirements among our survey cohort, they offered useful insights on the estimated increases in cost per home that they were facing. These were potentially more moderate than many estimates have suggested, which have typically extended up to around the £10,000 mark. We asked, based on a three-bedroom home,


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Have you adopted a fabric-fi rst strategy for Future Homes Standard compliance in your projects?  Yes  No


what the estimated cost increase would be, and the most popular option was a £1,000 to £5,000 uplift per home, but the responses did vary, with 15% saying that cost increases would be under £1K, but 11% saying it would be between £20K and £30K. Among our respondents, a surprising 8% even thought that compliance would add an extra £30,000+ per home. This cost increase feeds into concerns around the commercial viability of delivering FHS-compliant homes, a particularly acute issue given the current pressures in the housing market from a continued cost of living crisis, geopolitical concerns, and high mortgage interest. This combination of headwinds saw some understandable concern among our respondents about the potential of homes to recoup the added investment required for compliance, from consumers to make schemes viable. Challenges such as making sites climate resilient using SuDS and other approaches further compromise the potential return on investment from maximising plots on sites. There was a fairly predictable majority of 52% who were ‘moderately’ or ‘very’ concerned about the viability of schemes, however there were also 26% who were not concerned at all. Potentially they had managed to strategise some very effective viability in advance, have a customer base which will support the uplift, or may even be residing in a mindset of professional optimism.


While the iggest perceied ris was infl ating uild costs, a close second at 39% were concerns around grid constraints. This was in a context of utility connection lead times for an elevated set of electricity demands. On larger sites, additional substation/network capacity may be required. Solar generation, export capacity and electricity demand management also need to be considered. Unsurprisingly, skills shortages featured highly in the list of risks (25% picked this), as did the perennial issue of ‘planning


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