The Crossroads of 2026: Speed, Certainty, and the Surveyor’s Role in a Transformed Market
If you had walked into any surveying event or forum in early 2024 and started talking about Artificial Intelligence, you might have been met with a few polite requests to “get back to the damp meters.” At the time, AI felt like a distant, over-hyped concept, something being discussed enthusiastically elsewhere, but with little obvious relevance to the very real, physical task of inspecting buildings.
Back then, for many in our profession, AI was a “banned phrase”, used more often by sceptics than advocates. It felt abstract, impersonal, and faintly disconnected from the grit, mortar, and professional judgement that define good surveying.
Fast forward to January 2026, and the landscape has shifted beneath our feet.
As I review the latest Landmark Residential Property Trends and Residential Mortgage Lenders reports, one thing is clear: we are no longer debating whether the industry will change. We are witnessing its active recalibration. The question for surveyors now is not whether to engage with that change, but how.
A Market Catching Its Breath, Not Losing Its Pulse
Let’s begin with the wider market context.
The end of 2025 was characterised by a widespread “wait-and-see” approach. In England and Wales, uncertainty surrounding the Autumn Budget effectively put the housing market on pause during Q4. Listing volumes were down by around 7%, while completions fell by approximately 6% compared with the same period in 2024.
On the face of it, those figures appear sobering. But it would be a mistake to read them as evidence of terminal decline.
What the data actually suggests is a market catching its breath, rather than losing momentum altogether. Much of the activity appears delayed rather than lost.
Scotland provides a useful and encouraging counterpoint. Despite a softening in October and November, December outperformed the previous year as latent demand moved through the pipeline. Early signs of stabilisation suggest that confidence returned quickly once fiscal uncertainty eased.
For surveyors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, this matters. It tells us that work has not vanished; it is merely pent up. And when pent-up demand releases, it tends to move quickly. Preparedness, therefore, matters far more than pessimism.
The Transaction Time Crisis: A Shared Frustration
One of the most striking shifts in the lender research is this: regulation is no longer their primary concern.
For the first time, the length of time it takes to complete a transaction has overtaken regulation as the number one frustration for lenders, cited by around 40% of respondents. Just a year earlier, regulation dominated that list.
Equally revealing is what sits close behind it. Lenders report that chasing or being chased by stakeholders now consumes nearly 45% of their working day. Poor visibility and fragmented communication across the transaction chain remain persistent irritants.
Surveyors will recognise this instantly. We are often caught in the middle of this chasing culture—responding to lenders, conveyancers, agents, and clients, all seeking clarity at different stages and for different reasons.
However, this shift in lender frustration fundamentally reframes our role.
We are not potential blockers in an inefficient system. We are increasingly recognised as essential problem-solvers, providing certainty in a process starved of it.
This aligns closely with initiatives such as Project 28, which aims to reduce transaction times to 28 days from the sale agreed to exchange. Crucially, Project 28 is not about cutting corners. It is about better upfront information, clearer data flows, and fewer late-stage surprises.
Surveyors who provide well-scoped, comprehensive, and clearly structured reports are not slowing transactions down. They are helping prevent them from falling apart.
Visibility Is the New Currency
One of the quieter but most important findings in the lender research is frustration with the lack of visibility into transactions as they progress.
This is where surveyors can have an outsized impact.
A good survey does far more than identify defects. It clarifies risk, explains consequences, distinguishes between urgency and maintenance, and reduces uncertainty for everyone downstream.
In a transaction chain increasingly focused on speed and certainty, clarity has become a form of currency.
This demand for visibility is not marginal. In fact, 98% of lenders now say that access to a secure, interoperable digital data repository would improve transaction efficiency. This is not a “nice-to-have” aspiration; it is the future our clients are actively building towards.
Surveyors who communicate condition and risk clearly are not just serving their immediate client. They are stabilising the entire transaction process.
AI: From Hype to Structural Necessity
The most dramatic shift in the lender research is undoubtedly the rise of AI optimism.
In 2024, nearly half of lenders believed AI would have minimal impact on their work over the following five years. By 2025, that figure had collapsed to just 3%. Today, three-quarters of lenders believe AI will enhance customer engagement, while more than two-thirds expect it to improve data analysis and decision-making.
This is no longer about novelty or experimentation. It is about structural necessity.
Lenders are prioritising investment in:
For surveyors, this does not mean replacing professional judgement with algorithms. Far from it.
What it does mean is that the environment around us is changing.
If the rest of the transaction chain is redesigning itself around AI-enabled speed, visibility, and interoperability, surveyors who remain analogue by default risk becoming structurally misaligned—even if their technical competence is excellent.
What “AI-Ready” Really Means for Surveyors
It is important to be absolutely clear here.
The future is not AI-written surveys.
The future is surveys that AI can understand, without stripping out professional judgment.
At present, many survey reports are rich in narrative but poor in structure from a data perspective. They are designed to be read by humans alone. Increasingly, lenders and other stakeholders are building systems that need to extract insight quickly and reliably.
That raises an important question for our profession:
Could a lender’s AI system instantly identify the roof condition and associated risk level from your report without a human reading several pages of text?
If the answer is no, then, however well written the report may be, it may be creating a bottleneck rather than a solution.
This is not about reducing surveys to tick-boxes. It is about making professional insight more visible, more accessible, and more usable within a modern transaction chain. Done properly, this enhances—not diminishes—the value of expert judgement.
Emerging Risks: Why Human Judgement Matters More Than Ever
While technology reshapes processes, the physical risks we report on are evolving too.
Lenders are increasingly focused on climate-related factors that sit squarely within the surveyor’s domain of expertise. Concern around coastal erosion has risen sharply, while heat stress has climbed the risk agenda following successive record-breaking summers. Flood risk, ground stability, and long-term resilience remain ever-present considerations.
These are not abstract data points. They are deeply contextual.
An automated model can flag exposure. Only a surveyor can explain what that exposure means for a specific building, constructed in a particular way, in a particular location, with a particular pattern of use.
Interestingly, concern around EPCs has fallen sharply in the lender data. That may reflect the current absence of immediate regulatory pressure—but it would be unwise to mistake this for permanent change. Sustainability remains very important to a majority of lenders, many of whom now operate strict environmental policies.
In other words, while the regulatory noise may have eased, the underlying expectation has not. A survey that ignores this broader context is simply not future-proof.
Differentiation: Doing the Right Things More Clearly
One final statistic is worth lingering on.
Around 85% of lenders now believe differentiation is vital to future success, up sharply from the previous year. In a congested, competitive market, standing out is no longer optional.
This mirrors the challenge facing independent surveyors.
Differentiation will not come from doing more things. It will come from doing the right things more clearly:
It may also mean proactively offering deeper insight into the emerging risks lenders are now prioritising—such as climate resilience, long-term sustainability, or early-stage risk reviews—rather than relying solely on standard checklists.
In a leaner market, “good enough” reports are no longer enough.
Looking Forward: A Clear Moment of Choice
2026 represents a pivotal moment for our profession.
The wait-and-see phase is ending. Confidence is returning. Activity will follow.
Surveyors who adapt to the growing demand for faster, more visible, and more structured information will thrive. Those who view AI not as a threat but as a tool to clarify and enhance their expertise will strengthen their position within the transaction chain.
The transaction process is recalibrating at speed. Surveyors who fail to engage with that reality risk being left behind.
At the RPSA, we will champion those who embrace this change—ensuring that our members’ professional judgement remains the most valuable asset in a market that increasingly craves certainty.
Surveyors remain at the heart of the transaction. The challenge now is to make that role unmistakably clear.
