On 5 January, the British Property Federation, the Association of Real Estate Funds and the Investment Property Forum joined forces to create Real Estate UK, or RE:UK, as it will be known.
The three long-standing groups, which voted between July and August last year in favour of the merger, will disappear with the current chief executives and chairs giving up their positions. RE: Scotland will be formed for activities in Scotland and introduced after the 2026 Scottish election.
The merger has been billed as “a once in generation chance to create a powerful single convenor and voice of UK real estate”.
In its mission paper, RE:UK’s stated aim is to promote UK real estate, make it more accessible and attractive to investors, be a trusted partner for government and maximise the sector’s economic and social impact for communities across the UK.
But RE:UK starts life rudderless. It doesn’t have a chairperson or a CEO. And these empty spaces on the board have left the industry worried, that what was pitched as being a white knight for the commercial property sector, will be a bit of a lame horse.
Liz Peace, who was BPF chief executive from 2002 to 2014, describes the lack of people in the top jobs at RE:UK “slightly concerning”. She says since the official launch announcement in September, there has been little information or progress reports on the appointment of a new chief executive or how “they’re going to manage the chair arrangement for it”.
While the launch of RE:UK is “potentially a brilliant thing for the property market,” says Peace, the silence surrounding it has meant “it has lost momentum,” and “people have lost interest – they don’t know what’s happening, and that is not what you want people to be saying for something as significant as this”.
However, Melanie Leech, current BPF chief executive, defends the launch strategy of RE:UK. “There is a lot going on behind the scenes with various plans of work preparing for the merger,” she says.
Leech adds the January launch date was merely to signal RE:UK’s presence and it was always intended that this year would be a transition year, as legal due diligence is completed, with the firming up of a timeline for the full integration and merger of the trade bodies to be outlined over the first half of the year. “We’ll be doing a lot of work to integrate things gradually,” says Leech.
This includes how to combine existing next-gen networks and policy work that is being undertaken across the different organisations.
Prior to the full merger, the three organisations will continue to put out communications under their separate names before the full merger completes, of which there is still no firm date.
The search for a CEO began in November and is being overseen by executive search firm Egon Zehnder. Industry commentators argue any new CEO should either be a lobbyist or property person. As one industry source puts it: “They should have the necessary experience to do the job, but be young enough to understand the impact of AI and all these other new-fangled things.”
Although RE:UK’s formation has been widely supported, there has also been a call to include more organisations. The built environment sector has historically been a crowded playing field with many voices, says Nick Knight, COO, Knight Frank.
As a result, the merger of these industry bodies “must be a more effective conduit for the industry into government, into policymaking, into that decision-making environment, which is a good thing,” adds Knight.
Peace says it would have been “more sensible to roll BCO and Revo [into RE:UK] as well.” She adds: “I know those who run BCO and Revo and they do not agree with me on that. That is fair enough. But I certainly [found] it mildly irritating when I was lobbying with the BPF that I would go along to a party conference and there would be the BCSC [Revo] also trying to nobble ministers. It’s better if you can do it as one.”
Sue Brown, managing director of Real Estate Balance, believes that if RE:UK is going to truly provide a powerful and unified voice for the industry, its relationship with the wider real estate ecosystem – including organisations like RICS, RIBA and Real Estate Balance – will be critical.
The BPF already works with the NHS and a range of other bodies, and Leech says, “a focus on maintaining and expanding those core partner relationships is embedded into the Real Estate UK mission.”
There is also the question of how large the RE:UK budget will be and how the money will be deployed when it comes to things like lobbying. “What is [RE:UK] going to do better and differently,” says Peace. “I would like to see that it has found ways of building a better budget for doing what it needs to do.”
In response, Leech points to RE:UK’s mission paper, which outlines how the body will tackle everything from collaboration, standards and guidance, through to education, networking and research and data.
While many questions still remain unanswered, what is certain is that over the course of 2026, all eyes will be on RE:UK to see who is going to be at the helm and what impact the new organisation will have in not only its first year, but in the years to come.
BOXOUT: Launch of RE:UK leads Property Industry Alliance to reflect on its future
Formed in 2006, the Property Industry Alliance (PIA) was created to present a blended view of the industry, bringing together seven bodies as members: the BCO, CREFC Europe, ULI, RICS, BPF, AREF and IPF.
Now the latter three have joined forces to launch RE:UK, it drops the number of PIA’s member bodies to five and the merger has caused the umbrella organisation to reflect on whether it needs to change.
“The default position is it’s still going to be relevant for the PIA to act in that convening capacity of its five members and also reflect on whether there are other organisations that might usefully join that group to ensure wider coordination and interaction across the industry,” says Bill Hughes, who has been the PIA’s chair for the past decade.
He adds: “We’re going to take a moment to reflect on whether in any way it needs to evolve.”
This potential evolution will be discussed at a PIA board meeting in June. Hughes says it would be wrong to pre-empt what is going to happen, but it is possible a select number of built environment organisations from the construction, architecture, planning and potentially residential sectors, could become members of the PIA.
Hughes admits the creation of RE:UK “is an event that of course makes PIA consider whether or not it’s set up correctly. But every two or three years the PIA has been thinking about is it effective, is it purposeful, is it doing what is needed.”
He adds the PIA still has a key role to perform in being “the convening glue on a regular, spontaneous, reactive basis,” and points out it has a wide range of important strategic projects it is currently working on around sustainability, engagement with the likes of the Bank of England, data and the industry’s reputation.
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