BLOGS

A sector coming of age

Build-to-rent has spent the last decade proving itself as a serious pillar of UK housing delivery. Now, with more than 147,670 homes completed and a total pipeline exceeding 302,000 units according to the British Property Federation and Savills (Q1 2026), the sector is making its most ambitious claim yet: that it can set the gold standard for renting in Britain.

In May 2026, at the UK Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) in Leeds, the Build to Rent Alliance — formed by the Association for Rental Living (ARL) and Real Estate:UK (RE:UK) — formally launched a first-of-its-kind Code of Practice for BTR in England and Wales. Following nearly four years of development and consultation with operators, investors and residents, it represents the sector's clearest attempt to draw a line between professionally managed, purpose-built rental housing and the broader, more fragmented private rented sector.

Sixteen major operators — including Grainger, Greystar, Get Living, Legal & General, Long Harbour and Moda Living — have already backed the code. The Alliance says verification processes will be developed throughout 2026, with the full, operational code set to come into force once that testing is complete.

What the code actually means in practice

At its core, the Code of Practice establishes a framework across five interconnected pillars: housing quality, resident experience, sustainability, governance and operational management.

On quality, the code commits signatories to delivering and maintaining homes above national minimum standards — not merely at the statutory floor. Critically, it specifies that safety-related costs should not be passed directly to residents by default. This is a direct and deliberate contrast with some practices in the broader PRS, where service charges and maintenance levies have become a source of tenant grievance.

The resident experience pillar goes further than most existing regulatory requirements. Rather than prescribing minimum amenity provision, the code sets a qualitative benchmark for lifestyle and community standards — reflecting how BTR has long marketed itself around communal spaces, concierge services and curated tenant communities.

For governance, the code introduces accountability mechanisms designed to reassure both regulators and investors. The Alliance has described this as making BTR "the most rigorously accountable" homes in the private rented sector — language aimed squarely at a government increasingly sceptical of self-regulation. The code currently applies to purpose-built apartment schemes in England and Wales; separate provisions for single-family BTR and other living sectors are expected to follow.

It is worth noting that Scotland and Northern Ireland are not covered by this iteration of the code. Scotland's rental market operates under distinct regulatory frameworks — including the private residential tenancy system introduced in 2017 — and any extension of the code's remit to those nations would require separate engagement with devolved authorities.

The market context: a sector under pressure

The timing of the code is not coincidental. The BTR sector is navigating a complex moment.

On one hand, the fundamentals remain compelling. According to BPF and Savills data, investment in BTR reached £5.3 billion in 2025 — up 6.1% year-on-year — and is forecast to exceed £5.7 billion in 2026. Completions rose more than 13% in 2025. BTR now accounts for roughly 8% of all new homes delivered across Great Britain, a share that continues to grow.

On the other hand, the delivery pipeline faces serious structural headwinds. New BTR starts fell 65% in the twelve months to Q1 2026 — dropping from 16,054 to just 5,619 nationally. In London, the contraction was even sharper: construction starts fell approximately 80% in 2025, with only around 1,048 units beginning on site in the year to Q1 2026. Completions have now outpaced starts for nine consecutive quarters, pointing to a tightening in available stabilised stock later this decade.

Planning delays, building safety reforms introduced by the Building Safety Regulator in July 2025, and rising tender prices — forecast by analysts to increase around 3% during 2026 — are all bearing down on viability. Average planning permission timelines in London have roughly doubled since 2019, with Section 106 negotiations adding further delay before sites can start on site.

Against this backdrop, rental growth is expected to remain positive. Cushman & Wakefield forecast UK rents rising approximately 3.7% in 2026, driven by a persistent shortage of rental homes relative to demand. REalyse data consistently shows that professionally managed BTR stock in major urban markets — including Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and outer London districts — commands asking rents at a meaningful premium over comparable private rented homes, reflecting the amenity uplift and management quality that operators provide. Gross yields on stabilised BTR assets in regional cities typically sit in the 4.5%–6.5% range, depending on location and specification, though London assets tend to compress toward the lower end of that band given higher land and build costs.

What it means for investors

For institutional investors and lenders, the code is more than a marketing exercise. It creates the conditions for a clearer, more verifiable underwriting framework.

At present, due diligence on BTR assets requires significant manual benchmarking — comparing scheme specifications, management practices and tenant retention against a fragmented peer group. A code with defined, auditable standards reduces that friction. Over time, REalyse-style analytics can be used to cross-reference code-compliant assets against local rental comparables, days-on-market data and achieved rent figures, helping investors identify whether premium rents are being supported by genuine operational quality — or simply by market-level scarcity.

The code also matters for lenders. As the Renters' Rights Act embeds new tenant protections — including the abolition of fixed-term tenancies and Section 21 notices from 1 May 2026 — lenders are reassessing risk across the PRS. BTR assets underpinned by a recognised code of practice offer a cleaner collateral story: professionally managed, operationally accountable, with a governance trail that individual landlords simply cannot replicate.

For developers assessing new scheme viability, the code provides an emerging planning narrative. Local authorities in England and Wales that have included BTR in their pipeline — now numbering 215 according to BPF data — are increasingly receptive to schemes that can evidence operational quality alongside unit numbers and affordable housing contributions.

What it means for tenants

For renters, the code's most tangible near-term benefit may be the shift in accountability it signals rather than any immediate legal right it creates. Because the code is voluntary at this stage, tenants cannot enforce its provisions through the courts. However, it does establish a public, verifiable benchmark against which residents can measure their operator's promises — and against which the sector can be held to account by regulators and media.

The prohibition on passing safety-related costs to residents by default is particularly significant. Combined with the Renters' Rights Act, Awaab's Law (which mandates fixed timescales for addressing damp and mould hazards), and incoming changes to minimum energy efficiency standards — requiring EPC C by 2030, with earlier targets for new tenancies — the code sits within a regulatory stack that is materially raising the floor for rental housing quality in England and Wales.

For tenants choosing between a code-compliant BTR scheme and the broader PRS, the practical differences may become more visible over time: faster maintenance response times, transparent service charges, clearer complaints processes, and homes designed from inception for long-term rental use rather than retrofitted for the market.

Outlook: a defining year for BTR's identity

The Build to Rent Alliance has described 2026 as a year of consultation and refinement before the code formally comes into force. That gives the industry time to build the verification infrastructure needed for meaningful compliance — but it also means the code's authority remains provisional for now.

Much will depend on the scale of operator uptake. With sixteen major names already committed and the Alliance positioning the code as a condition of differentiation from the wider PRS, the incentive to sign up is clear. Operators that hold out risk being characterised as the lower end of a sector that is explicitly trying to benchmark itself upward.

For the UK housing market more broadly, a maturing BTR sector with transparent operational standards is unambiguously positive. REalyse planning and development data shows that the BTR pipeline spans more than 200 local authority areas — meaning its standards, for better or worse, now shape rental experiences in cities and towns far beyond London. If the code achieves its stated ambition of making BTR the most accountable homes in the PRS, it will raise expectations across the entire sector — and create a measurable, data-driven standard against which progress can finally be tracked.