News

Residential surveying expo 2025: People, ideas, and momentum

Date and venue: Tuesday 7 October 2025, Coventry Building Society Arena
RPSA team on the stand: Andrew McColl, Malcolm Hordern, Stephen McCarron and Sean Curtin

The Residential Surveying Expo returned to Coventry with its trademark mix of technical sessions, career advice and a buzzing exhibition. Our RPSA stand was busy from doors open, welcoming existing members, meeting students and fielding questions from prospective members. With four council members in attendance throughout the day, we split our time between the stand and the theatres, catching several key sessions while keeping conversation flowing on the floor.

As ever, we set up the day before. SAVA’s evening welcome mixer from 6 pm to 9 pm did what it always does: fuel good conversation, reunite familiar faces, and make three hours feel like thirty minutes. It’s a reminder that in a geographically spread profession, these annual touchpoints matter.

What we learned in the theatres.

RICS Home Survey Standard: Q&A and direction of travel

A lively Q&A dug into proposed updates and clarifications to the Home Survey Standard. The headline remains familiar: greater consistency in inspection scope and clearer expectations for clients. The emerging Appendix A material aims to reduce ambiguity about “what’s included” at each level and to support more consistent consumer outcomes across the market. For practitioners, the implication is simple: review your templates, check your definitions, and be ready to evidence consistency. 

Seller-side reporting: why momentum is building

Alan Milstein’s session on the seller’s survey made the case for upfront information that improves transparency, reduces fall-throughs and accelerates decision-making. We’ve been discussing the “Home Insight” approach for some time, and the appetite in the room reflected wider industry shifts toward earlier disclosure and more intelligent triage before buyers spend heavily. Expect continued debate about scope, liability and integration with existing standards, but the trajectory is clear. 

AI in surveying: helpful assistant, not replacement

James Brook and Dr Simon McCool explored practical AI use cases now appearing in the surveying workflow: triage of documents, pattern-spotting in large image sets, drafting support for routine passages, and QA prompts that surface inconsistencies. The tone was pragmatic rather than breathless. The takeaway was that AI can accelerate parts of our process, but professional judgement, site observation, and accountable sign-off remain central. Sensible guardrails, version control, and audit trails will matter as much as the models.

On the floor: conversations that matter

The exhibition hall again proved its worth: suppliers demoed tools, trainees asked smart questions about routes into practice, and employers compared notes on recruitment and CPD. The expo deliberately blends career content with technical sessions, keeping the pipeline conversation connected to standards and competence. That mix is exactly what the profession needs.

Why attend next year if you haven’t before?

Because this is where the threads join up, you get standards in the morning, tech and tools at lunch, careers and competence in the afternoon, and a hall full of people you only bump into once or twice a year. If you’re a student or early-career surveyor, it’s the quickest way to see the breadth of the profession in one day. If you’re a seasoned practitioner, it’s a fast way to pressure-test your approach against where the market is heading. SAVA has already signalled the event’s scale and focus; expect more of the same next year. 

Interesting claims here—probably too late for me. Wonder if they do diets?

Thank you

A big thank you to everyone who stopped by the RPSA stand, to SAVA for hosting, and to the speakers who gave their time. Special thanks to Malcolm, Stephen and Sean for holding the fort while some of us dashed to the theatres.