Starting January 2026, the Fire Protection Association will offer qualifications aligned with BS 8674:2025, the new national competency framework for fire risk assessors in England. The government has signaled its intention to make competence requirements mandatory, with verification by UKAS-accredited certification bodies.
Fire risk assessment now requires verifiable credentials. If you’ve been conducting assessments based on field work but lack formal qualifications aligned with BS 8674:2025, you face a barrier.
Why This Is Happening Now
The Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017 exposed widespread inadequacies in fire risk assessor competence.
The subsequent inquiry recommended establishing “a system of mandatory accreditation to certify the competence of fire risk assessors.” The government listened.
BS 8674:2025 establishes the first national competency framework for individual fire risk assessors. Before this standard, the profession operated without clear benchmarks. Assessors claimed competence based on experience, informal training, or self-declaration.
What the New Framework Actually Requires
BS 8674:2025 introduces a three-tier competency model that matches assessor capability to building complexity.
Foundation level covers straightforward, low-risk buildings: small offices, retail spaces, or simple residential structures where fire risk factors are predictable and well-documented.
The intermediate level addresses more complex environments. These buildings have multiple occupancy types, varied escape routes, or features that require deeper technical knowledge to assess properly.
Advanced level tackles high-risk and specialized buildings. This includes high-rise residential towers, hospitals, or structures with unusual fire safety challenges that demand expert-level judgment.
The tiered structure prevents assessors from overstepping their capabilities and enables organizations to match expertise to building a risk profile.
Competence requires more than qualifications.
BS 8674:2025 requires technical knowledge, practical skills, field experience, and professional behaviors. Assessors must demonstrate judgment, ethical practice, and applied knowledge.
The standard mandates recognizing expertise boundaries and seeking specialist advice when necessary. This applies to complex evaluations like external wall assessments, which follow specialized guidance in PAS 9980.
Market Consolidation and the Experience Gap
Mandatory competence requirements will consolidate the fire risk assessment market. Practitioners without recognized qualifications face barriers to practice.
The impact varies by practitioner type. Smaller firms that relied on informal expertise may struggle to compete against organizations that invested early in formal training and certification. Freelance assessors who built practices on field experience alone must obtain recognized qualifications. Many respected practitioners built expertise through decades of field work rather than formal education—they lack the credentials the new framework requires.
Employers, duty holders, and building owners now have objective benchmarks for selecting assessors. This disrupts established procurement patterns built on relationships and reputation rather than verifiable credentials.
The standardization transfers liability risk. Previously, competence was a matter of individual judgment and professional reputation. Now it’s anchored to adherence to established protocols and demonstrable qualifications. If something goes wrong, the question is: “Did they hold the appropriate certification level for this building type?”
Insurance companies are watching. Expect premiums to reflect certification status.
BS 8674:2025 recognizes experience as part of competence assessment. Experienced practitioners must formalize their knowledge through recognized qualifications and demonstrate it meets current standards. For those with decades of field expertise but no formal credentials, this creates a compressed timeline to validate what they already know—or exit the profession.
How Training Providers Are Responding
The Fire Protection Association and FireQual launched qualifications aligned with BS 8674:2025. They offer Level 3 (Foundation), Level 4 (Intermediate), and Level 5 (Advanced) certificates with course dates available.
Many assessors must complete certification before the January 2026 deadline. Training providers that deliver quality programs quickly will capture significant market share.
Speed creates risk. Rushing people through certification programs to meet demand could undermine the competency framework. The standard emphasizes that qualifications alone aren’t enough. Assessors need practical experience, ongoing professional development, and demonstrated judgment.
The Fire Protection Association brings 78 years of fire safety expertise. Established in 1946, they’ve built credibility across research, consultancy, training, and risk assessment.
Other organizations are entering the market with varying levels of preparation. Training program quality will become apparent over the next 12-18 months.
The Continuous Competence Requirement
All registrants face ongoing monitoring, including annual Continuing Professional Development (CPD) audits, insurance verification, and periodic competency reviews.
Fire safety knowledge evolves. Building materials change. Regulations update. New risks emerge. Assessors who stop learning become liabilities.
Certification proves you met standards at a point in time. Continued registration proves you’re maintaining those standards through active practice and learning.
Practitioners must document learning activities, track hours, and demonstrate how development aligns with current standards and regulations.
What This Means for Building Owners and Duty Holders
The Building Safety Act 2022 created a legal duty for competent assessments. BS 8674:2025 defines what competent means.
Building owners must verify assessor certification level matches their building’s risk profile.
Before engaging an assessor, verify:
Certification level and registration status
Insurance coverage
CPD compliance
Relevant experience with your building type
Buildings with complex features like external cladding systems require assessors with advanced qualifications or specialists who follow PAS 9980 guidance for external wall assessments.
Properly qualified assessors with verified competence command higher fees than the informal market previously supported. The liability protection and regulatory compliance justify the investment.
The Professionalization Timeline
The government has signaled its intention to require independent, third-party certification of fire risk assessor competence. While BS 8674:2025 itself is a code of practice that supports the Building Safety Act 2022, it sets the benchmark for what “competent” means. Enforcement authorities, insurers, and certification bodies are expected to reference it when assessing compliance.
Training providers offering BS 8674:2025-aligned qualifications target January 2026 as the practical deadline. Training providers must scale capacity. Certification bodies must establish verification processes. Building owners must audit their current assessors and potentially source new providers.
Expect bottlenecks in training availability, certification processing, and qualified assessor supply. Organizations that move early will have more options. Those who wait until late 2025 may struggle to find training slots or qualified replacements for non-compliant assessors.
Beyond Fire Risk Assessment: A Sector-Wide Shift
The competency-based approach is spreading across fire safety disciplines. Fire engineers, passive fire protection installers, and fire door inspectors face similar professionalization pressures driven by the same regulatory pattern: tragic failures expose competence gaps, inquiries recommend formal standards, government mandates certification.
The Building Safety Act 2022 and subsequent regulations represent a fundamental shift in how the UK approaches construction and fire safety competence. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry revealed systemic failures across multiple disciplines—not just fire risk assessment, but building control, product testing, and construction oversight.
This creates a compounding effect. As each discipline formalizes competency requirements, the informal networks that previously supported cross-disciplinary work dissolve. Practitioners can no longer rely on personal relationships with unqualified specialists. Every link in the fire safety chain now requires documented, verifiable competence.
Buildings are more complex. Risks are better understood. The consequences of incompetence are too severe to leave competence undefined. The fire safety sector is catching up to professionalization standards that other high-risk industries adopted decades ago.
Next Steps by Stakeholder
Fire risk assessors: Verify your qualification path to meet the January 2026 deadline. Contact training providers now. Course availability will tighten as the deadline approaches. If you’ve practiced for years without formal qualifications, start the certification process immediately—waiting until late 2025 means competing for limited training slots.
Employers: Audit your team’s credentials against the new framework. Identify gaps. Budget for training costs and potential productivity loss during the certification period. Plan for replacements if current assessors can’t or won’t certify. Consider that higher-qualified assessors will command premium rates.
Building owners and duty holders: Review your current assessment arrangements. Confirm your assessor’s certification plans. Understand what competency level your building requires under BS 8674:2025. If your current assessor lacks a clear path to certification, begin sourcing alternatives now. Under the Building Safety Act 2022, engaging an unqualified assessor creates direct liability exposure.
Training providers and certification bodies: The market opportunity is significant, but delivering substandard programs to meet demand will damage long-term credibility. The assessors certified in 2025-2026 will define industry perceptions of qualification quality for years.
The transition to mandatory competence is compressed, disruptive, and irreversible. The fire risk assessment profession that emerges in 2026 will look fundamentally different from the one that existed before Grenfell. Practitioners and organizations that treat this as a compliance exercise rather than a professional transformation will find themselves on the wrong side of that divide.