What’s coming up for the education estate in 2026?
Last year brought some promise for the education estate, with the Department for Education (DfE) acknowledging that elements of the system could be improved and committing to provide longer-term funding certainty. Yet for those responsible for managing school and college estates, little has fundamentally changed in practice.
Looking ahead, 2026 could be the year in which discussion begins to translate into action. Several policy, funding and research project developments are due to converge, each with potential implications for how the education estate is managed and funded. In the following review, we explore what’s coming up.
The Schools White Paper
The long-awaited Schools White Paper is expected to have far-reaching implications across the education sector. Originally anticipated in autumn last year, its publication was delayed to allow further engagement on proposed reforms to the SEND system.
The White Paper is also expected to set out the government’s approach to managing the hybrid system of academies and maintained schools, with a renewed emphasis on local collaboration and partnership across all state-funded schools, regardless of type.
Alongside publication, a public consultation is expected to be launched on elements of the SEND reform proposals.
SEND reform and capital funding
The proposed SEND reforms are likely to have significant implications for the future development of the school estate, particularly given the government’s continued focus on increasing SEND provision within mainstream settings.
In December last year, the Education Secretary announced £3 billion of capital funding to support the creation of 50,000 new specialist places in mainstream schools. The government also confirmed that it will deliver all previously planned places through special free schools. However, some individual projects will no longer proceed, with the associated funding instead being diverted to local authorities to deploy more flexibly.
Further detail on how this capital funding will be allocated and prioritised is expected to be set out within the Schools White Paper.
What’s coming up in education estates?
School Rebuilding Programme (SRP)
Applications for the final 250 places on the expanded School Rebuilding Programme are expected to open early this year, with schools demonstrating the most severe need prioritised. The expansion announced last year will result in 750 schools (approximately 3.5% of the estate) benefiting from the programme between 2021 and 2035.
Despite a stated commitment to prioritise maintenance over replacement, projected combined spending on maintenance and the SRP totals £23 billion up to 2030. Of this, 55% is allocated to maintenance and 45% to the SRP. For the period 2030–2035, the proportion allocated to the SRP reduces to 41%.
Implications for estates leaders
The SRP is set to remain one of the only viable funding routes available to responsible bodies seeking to achieve major rebuilding works. The next application round is therefore likely to be extremely competitive, offering opportunities for only around 1% of schools to be rebuilt.
There are already 518 schools confirmed within the programme, with an anticipated delivery rate of around 50 projects per year. As a result, even successful applicants in the next round are unlikely to see works commence on their estates until after 2030.
In December 2025, the DfE released guidance recommending that any school with structural or other significant issues that cannot be adequately evidenced through CDC2 data should begin preparing now. This includes commissioning condition and structural surveys and collating relevant reports where these are not already held.
Release of the Department for Education’s Estates Strategy
During an Education Select Committee session in October last year, the DfE confirmed it is developing a long-term estates strategy. This will be informed by the Treasury’s 10-year infrastructure strategy and is expected to place greater emphasis on proactive maintenance, renewing buildings through condition and maintenance, and reserving rebuilding for cases of acute condition need.
Implications for estates leaders
Potential changes to the maintenance funding system have been under discussion for over a year, with particular scrutiny on the Condition Improvement Fund. Topics we have written on at length.
While the DfE has yet to confirm a publication date for the strategy, there is a clear expectation that it will provide greater clarity on whether significant reforms to the maintenance funding system are expected.
Launch of the ‘Manage your education estate’ online service
The DfE is developing a new digital service, Manage your education estate, designed to support responsible bodies in taking a longer-term, strategic view of asset management and maintenance planning.
The service is expected to go live initially with a limited group of users. The DfE is currently seeking expressions of interest from those working at responsible body level who are involved in estates management, maintenance or operations and who would like early access to the service.
Implications for estates leaders
At this stage, it remains unclear how the service will function in practice or the extent of data sharing it will involve. However, we have long advocated improved communication channels and more effective data sharing between responsible bodies and the DfE. If implemented well, this service could represent a positive step forward.
The Condition Data Collection 2 (CDC2) programme
The CDC2 programme is due to conclude this year, having surveyed every government-funded school in England to collect updated data on building condition. The final tranche of schools was surveyed in July 2025. Many schools surveyed earlier in the programme saw their CDC2 scores reflected in their maintenance funding allocations for 2025–26.
Implications for estates leaders
CDC2 scores are replacing CDC1 condition band grades for the purposes of calculating maintenance funding. In the 2025–26 School Capital Funding Allocations, around 70% of schools had transitioned to CDC2 scoring.
For some multi-academy trusts receiving School Condition Allocations (SCA) on a formulaic basis, this transition resulted in significant reductions in annual maintenance funding.
At an aggregate level, the completed CDC2 dataset will be used by the DfE and the National Audit Office to reassess the overall condition of the school estate, including updated estimates of the maintenance backlog. However, CDC2’s primary function remains its use as a funding allocation mechanism. Given the surveys’ high-level nature and lack of detailed structural assessment, the resulting data provides only a partial picture of estate-wide condition and risk.
We recommend that schools and colleges review their CDC2 outputs alongside their own commissioned condition and, where appropriate, structural surveys.
To have an accurate picture of building condition, surveys must be updated regularly. Schools surveyed during the early stages of CDC2 are therefore likely to be approaching the point at which updated surveys are required. It remains to be seen whether a further national programme will be announced or whether an alternative, more effective approach to gathering up-to-date condition data will be adopted.
Results of the Older Buildings Research (OBR) project
The condition of the school estate continues to be identified as a major risk in the DfE’s annual report, driven largely by persistent safety concerns. These are particularly acute within post-war system-built blocks, where potential risk of structural failures have been identified. According to the DfE, 44% of the school estate was constructed during the post-war period between 1941 and 1990.
In response, the DfE initiated the Older Buildings Research (OBR) project last year to develop a better understanding of the structural risks inherent in post-war education buildings. The project is understood to be nearing completion, with findings expected later this spring.
Implications for estates leaders
Although the research included structural investigations, a key objective was the development of an analytical model to assess risk across the post-war estate, alongside guidance on observable characteristics associated with higher structural risk.
While the outputs may provide the DfE with a clearer estate-wide understanding of risk, they will not translate into a detailed assessment of individual buildings or identify precisely which blocks require intervention, nor the scale of works needed.
In practice, the findings are likely to result in further guidance for responsible bodies and estates teams to interpret, reinforcing the ongoing responsibility for managing structural risk at a local level, without necessarily being accompanied by additional funding. This was evidenced in December, when the DfE released two related pieces of guidance: an update to Managing older buildings, outlining common post-war construction types and maintenance considerations, and new guidance on when and how responsible bodies should appoint a structural engineer.
Looking ahead
Taken together, these developments suggest that while policy intent is increasingly focused on long-term planning, risk management and data-led decision-making, the practical burden of evidence gathering, prioritisation and delivery will continue to sit with responsible bodies.
For estates leaders, 2026 is therefore less about waiting for reform and more about preparing robust data, maintaining up-to-date condition intelligence and setting realistic expectations in a system where demand continues to outpace available capital investment.
If you’d like to discuss your school estate, or explore how to plan, fund or deliver capital projects more effectively, get in touch with our team on 0116 5070130 or email enquire@s2e.org.uk.
