My key takeaways from UKREiiF 2025 – the biggest and the best so far

UKREiiF is rapidly turning into the Glastonbury festival of the UK real estate investment and infrastructure world, complete with street food stalls. After a whirlwind few days of networking, attending panel debates and meeting key contacts, most people I have spoken to told me they had spent the bank holiday weekend and following week recovering. They weren’t the only ones!

In June, we’ll be publishing the write-ups of all five events BE News ran, but here are some of my highlights:

Over lunch on Tuesday, I moderated a roundtable debate delving into: ‘The construction industry insolvency crisis: How do we galvanise the whole industry into action?’ The short answer was ‘not easily’. Participants agreed the following would be key: commitment, collaboration, transparency and trust. At the moment, it is too often a case of ‘buyer beware’, ISG’s demise and before it Carillion’s illustrating that no one is too big to fail. Thanks to Begbies Traynor Group and Freeths for sponsoring and Eddisons for hosting.

After the roundtable debate, we hotfooted it to Orega Broad Gate on The Headrow for a dynamic panel debate and networking event exploring: ‘How to get started and succeed in flex’. The consensus at the oversubscribed event was that one size does not fit all and that the flex workspace sector is evolving rapidly in response to changing occupier – and landlord – demands as well as advances in AI and technology. Thanks to Interaction and technologywithin for sponsoring and Orega for hosting. Thanks also to our fantastic panellists: technologywithin’s Adam Case; Interaction’s Dieter Wood; Orega’s Alan Pepper; CEG’s Theresa White; Storey’s Rebecca Gardiner; Colliers’ Phoebe Cobb; and Bruntwood SciTech’s Andrew Cooke.

We were up at the break of dawn on Wednesday morning to get from York, where we were staying (fewer scammers), to Leeds for our ‘Focus on ESG’ breakfast networking event, attended by 40 senior figures from across the living sector and featuring a keynote speech from Katerina Papavasileiou of Federated Hermes. Wow, what a speech! Katerina’s view is that companies face a stark binary choice in relation to ESG of ‘commit or quit’. The audience were adamant they would commit. In Donald Trump’s anti-ESG world, others wouldn’t, she warned. Could it be time to ditch the phrases ESG and sustainability – at least for the next four years? Thanks to Workman for sponsoring and Brasserie Blanc for accommodating us – and serving up the best bacon rolls in Leeds.

We held our first on-site event at Wednesday lunchtime at the Royal Armouries: a roundtable discussion assessing: ‘How property managers can leverage AI, tech and data to meet investor expectations’. Only three participants were not yet actively using AI. Most were converts and excited about the potential of AI but concerned about the quality of data being used, the skills required and, of course, issues such as hallucinations and cybersecurity. The consensus? Work out what the precise needs of your organisation are and build solid foundations – the right data, people and tools – before going all in. In short, make sure there is human oversight throughout, and the tail doesn’t end up wagging the dog. Thanks to Yardi for sponsoring.

Our second onsite event, and our final one at this year’s UKREiiF, was a BE News networking event, sponsored by Yardi and hosted by Caddick+Moda at the Places for Live Pavilion (pictured). Thanks to everyone for joining us for yet another oversubscribed event and underlining exactly what BE News is all about: bringing leaders – current and future – together from across the built environment industry to forge new contacts and catch up with old ones. It was a fitting way to round off our activity for 2025.

We will definitely be back next year. This year’s event was the biggest and the best UKREiiF to date and I’m already looking forward to next year’s. As fans of newly promoted Leeds United sing: We love you Leeds, Leeds, Leeds!