Now Reform UK are serious contenders, should the built environment despair or rejoice?

For much of the past two decades, Nigel Farage’s political projects have generally been treated as disruptive pressure groups rather than plausible administrations. These latest local council results show Reform UK’s growing power and organisational reach. This means the sector should ask a practical question: If Reform entered government in 2029, what would it mean for those who finance, design, build and manage Britain’s built environment?

The honest answer is that, at the moment, three days is a long time in politics – three years is a lifetime away. However, assuming GDP, productivity and growth remain flaccid, as they are at the moment, we would probably see neither unqualified celebration nor tearful despair from those operating in the construction industry.

A Reform government could simultaneously be pro-growth and pro-development while also being deeply destabilising

We are used to playing the hand we are dealt. For construction, a Reform government could simultaneously be pro-growth and pro-development while also being deeply destabilising. As the saying goes, you campaign in poetry but govern in prose.

Assuming that, in 2029, at the time of the next election, we are in the same economic doom-loop as now, then our sector itself is hardly coming from a position of strength. Latest data from the Construction Products Association makes for grim reading, warning that output could drop by 2.5% this year overall; we also face double-digit construction product price inflation and a rough 12 to 18 months ahead.

Ironically, the economic damage caused by the actions of Donald Trump could mean that a Nigel Farage government may see one of the UK’s largest sectors being challenged by the unreliability of his closest political mentor.

That matters, because Reform’s most immediate attraction to the built environment would be planning alignment and deregulation. The party’s instinct is clear – Britain does not build enough homes, infrastructure takes too long, and regulation has become a brake on growth. On that diagnosis, many in the industry would quietly agree.

Even under Labour’s current pro-building rhetoric, delivery remains difficult. Recent reporting suggests that only around 300,000 homes have been added in the first 18 months of this parliament – well below the pace required to meet headline targets.

Based on what we know, a Reform government would probably move faster on planning than its predecessors. Ministers would be likely to centralise decision-making, curb judicial review routes, pressure local authorities to determine applications more quickly and reopen politically sensitive questions around green belt release. For housebuilders, land promoters, planners, architects and regional developers, that could be transformational.

One of Britain’s core economic problems is not lack of capital but an inability to secure timely consent. Also, the fact that Reform UK now controls so much of local government may well assist the party if it works out how to harness this power, although Farage may find reality is harder to control than rhetoric.

Then there is infrastructure. Recent forecasts from PwC found that public non-residential construction grew by more than 18% in 2025, while industrial construction rose by around 19%, supported by investment in health, education, energy, defence and advanced manufacturing as well as a boom in the technologiy sector.

Reform would almost certainly lean into visible capital projects such as roads, reservoirs, prisons, ports, grid reinforcement and defence estate upgrades. For contractors, engineers, project managers and specialist consultants, that pipeline could be lucrative.

A chancellor promising faster growth is one thing, but a Treasury perceived as improvising is another. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwateng have the scars to prove it

However, construction only thrives under stable financing conditions. This is especially relevant because Reform’s programme has often combined tax cutting with anti-establishment tub thumping. The suggested £20,000 starting rate for tax that has been bandied around, the abandonment of inheritance tax, and other crowd pleasers may be loved by voters but hated by an anxious market.

Markets can absorb radical politics more easily than they can absorb unclear arithmetic. A chancellor promising faster growth is one thing, but a Treasury perceived as improvising is another. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have the scars to prove it.

The second note of caution centres around labour. The industry’s skills shortage is structural, not imaginary. If Reform paired a sharp reduction in migration with a simultaneous promise to build substantially more homes and infrastructure, labour scarcity would intensify unless training pipelines expanded rapidly. Wages would rise, which might be good news for some trades but harder news for margins and programme certainty.

Farage failed to mention the damage immigration controls meant for construction during his Brexit period. As a potential prime minister, would he have the wit to take notice of the needs of a sector larger than the car industry and aerospace combined?

Third is the question of net zero. Reform’s hostility to current climate policy would be welcomed by parts of heavy industry frustrated by cost and complexity, but much of the built environment has already moved. Institutional investors, occupiers and global clients increasingly demand efficient, resilient, low carbon assets regardless of Westminster’s mood. A government that slows regulation may cut compliance costs in the short term, while leaving UK firms less aligned with where capital markets are heading.

For those creating the built environment, the key question is not whether Reform is insurgent, patriotic or populist. It is whether, once in office, it could do the one thing that markets and project teams prize above all others – govern predictably. If it can, many in the industry may end up cheering; but, if not, we could all be too busy refinancing to weep.

Richard Steer is chair of Gleeds Worldwide and a Building The Future Think Tank commissioner