FMs assemble 

News

One of the Institute’s many superpowers is our ability to convene the most influential practitioners and leaders in the sector. 

This week IWFM hosted a virtual roundtable with senior FMs from top UK organisations in the public and private sectors.   

Institute Chair, Andrew Hulbert FIWFM, who hosted a similar session last December with FM service providers was this time joined by leaders from more than a dozen organisations managing buildings and workplaces in contexts as diverse as hospitality, housing, healthcare, banking and exhibition space.  

The rules were ‘Chatham House’ to facilitate an open exchange of views and the group – uniquely together - was able to work through the nourishers and drainers being faced by a sector whose known value-add to the UK economy in 2023 was £65 Bn, but whose deeper contribution must be so much more.   

Running themes were the sheer breadth of the – still evolving – FM role. While the profession’s name may be a barrier to a wider appreciation of its value, the zeal held by those in our room yesterday was profound: ‘I’m pro FM all day every day’ was the vibe.   

So what’s keeping them awake?  

Recruitment, retention, and the skills pipeline where we talked demographics, the challenge with apprenticeships and scarcity of supply chain skills.  

Budget pressure and underinvestment in maintenance where we talked rising costs, how to win Board support and constrained funding models.  

Digitisation and data capability gaps where we talked BIM, the need for data literacy and turning data into performance insight.  

Information management and handover quality where we talked about the challenge of ‘O&M’ documentation, acceptance controls and maintainability.  

Supplier model and supply chain fragility where we talked about supporting SMEs, supplier capacity and capability. 

These and more topics we’ll be exploring at our conference in June, IWFM Live!.  

We’re looking forward to similar discussions ongoing so do get in touch with Andrew Hulbert or Neil Everitt if you’d like to be part of it. We’d love to hear your perspectives.  

And if you want to understand more about a sector that provides work for 1.2 million people bringing real value to UK PLC take a look at our Market Outlook report – and for real depth, Market Intelligence. Market Outlook 2026 will be out later this spring.