November 3, 2026
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The rules around competence for building control professionals have changed.
Registered Building Inspectors are now part of a regulated profession overseen by the Building Safety Regulator. To carry out building control work in England, individuals must be registered for the class and categories of work they are competent to undertake, with assessment linked to the Building Inspector Competence Framework.
The assessment looks at skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours. It also does not stop at initial registration. RBIs are required to maintain and evidence their competence, with reassessment needed at least every four years. For those who registered at the start of the new regime, this brings reclassification into focus from April 2028.
This is a building control update, but it also starts a wider conversation around competence across Building Regulations and building safety.
For clients, developers and project managers, the relevance is in the appointments they make and the advice they rely on. A qualification or registration is important, but clients also need confidence that the people supporting them are keeping their knowledge current, learning from live project work and applying that experience in a practical way.
At Safer Sphere, we are already looking at what this means for our Building Safety team and for the support we provide to clients. That includes how competence is maintained through CPD, live project experience, technical discussion, quality assurance and lessons learned across current projects.
The aim is to make sure clients are supported by people whose knowledge is current, whose experience is relevant and whose advice reflects the way the Building Regulations and building safety regime are working in practice.
What is changing?
The Building Safety Regulator’s framework has created a more formal approach to building control competence. Registered Building Inspectors operate within defined registration classes and categories, and the Code of Conduct sets expectations around professional conduct, responsibility and acting within the scope of registration.
Competence assessment schemes must also evaluate candidates against the current Building Inspector Competence Framework, including the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours needed for the relevant registration class. These schemes also consider work-based evidence, portfolios, qualifications, examinations and/or interviews.
The message is: competence must be current and easy to show. Relying on a historic qualification, a job title, or experience gained several years ago is not enough. Professionals are being asked to show how they have maintained and applied their competence since registration.
Who does this affect?
Directly, this affects Registered Building Inspectors and those working within building control.
But this also affects clients, developers, project managers, contractors and design teams all need to think about competence when appointing anyone to help with Building Regulations or building safety.
This includes:
The roles may differ, but clients always need to ask: How do we know the people advising us are still competent for the work they are doing?
Why this matters for clients
Clients must make the right arrangements and appoint competent people.
A certificate or registration may provide useful assurance, but clients also need confidence that their advisors keep up with current regulation, apply lessons from live projects, and understand how compliance expectations are developing.
This matters because Building Regulations and building safety advice now sit much closer to key project decisions.
It can affect:
In this environment, competence about applying that knowledge clearly, proportionately, and at the right point in the project.
What should clients look for?
Clients do not need to understand every detail of RBI revalidation or professional assessment routes but they should know what this change means for them.
When appointing a Building Regulations Principal Designer, Building Regulations Consultant or Client Building Safety Advisor, clients should be asking:
These are the practical questions that help clients look past paperwork and check if the support they get is up to date, relevant and backed by evidence.
How Safer Sphere is responding
At Safer Sphere, we see RBI as part of the bigger shift in building safety competence.
Our Building Safety team is looking at what revalidation and ongoing competence mean in real terms. We are reviewing how we record and apply professional development, project experience, technical reviews and evidence of competence.
That includes:
Working across Building Safety roles, we see how competence expectations affect clients from early appointment strategy through design review, Gateway planning, and compliance evidence.
We stay ahead of the changes, understand what they mean, and turn that into practical support for our clients.