Facilities Management (FM) is standing on a transformative edge. Once the unseen force behind safe and operational buildings, FM is now increasingly in the spotlight — under pressure from tightening compliance regulations, soaring operational costs, digital disruption, and the relentless race to net zero. The State of Facilities Management Report 2025 by SFG20 offers a revealing snapshot of an industry at a pivotal moment, facing both daunting challenges and powerful opportunities.
The SFG20 State of FM survey highlights a sector grappling with mounting pressure to juggle compliance, cost efficiency, and sustainability—while keeping pace with fast-moving technological change. Compliance and safety have emerged as the leading priorities for facilities management professionals, driven by increasingly stringent regulations and heightened scrutiny of building operations. Yet, many organisations continue to struggle with compliance, often hindered by gaps in asset data, legacy systems, and unclear maintenance accountability.
When asked to identify the biggest opportunities in the sector, survey respondents pointed to technology and digital solutions as key enablers for achieving compliance and driving down costs. However, realising these benefits requires upfront investment in the right tools—a significant hurdle given the widespread budget constraints highlighted in the data. The focus on cost reduction is especially pronounced among respondents from the healthcare and public sectors, where financial pressures are most acute.
Compliance: From Obligation to Foundation
The top priority for FM professionals in 2025 is crystal clear: compliance and safety. The introduction of the Building Safety Regulator has upped the stakes, demanding higher standards and clearer accountability across the board. Yet 77% of respondents admitted they find compliance at least moderately challenging. Many organisations remain unsure how to interpret new regulations or lack the evidence needed to prove compliance.
While 63% of FM professionals say they are confident in their ability to meet new legislation, a deeper dive reveals a gap between perceived and actual compliance. The issue is compounded by fragmented asset data, lack of training, and inconsistent processes — all of which threaten to undermine efforts to stay aligned with fast-evolving regulatory demands.
SFG20’s recommendation is unequivocal: make compliance a standing board-level agenda item, supported by external audits, regular CPD, and robust digital tools. Without this strategic commitment, organisations risk not just penalties but also reputational damage and safety failures.
The Budget Squeeze: Fixing on Failure
If compliance is priority number one, then cost control is hot on its heels. With 69% of organisations facing static or reduced FM budgets, the financial pressures are immense — especially in the public and education sectors, where maintenance backlogs are ballooning. Alarmingly, 40% of respondents reported decreased budgets year-on-year.
This fiscal squeeze forces many teams into “fix-on-fail” strategies, a short-term approach that ultimately costs more. Deferred maintenance often spirals into larger failures, inefficiencies, and compliance gaps. A National Audit Office study cited in the report estimates that delaying maintenance can inflate costs by over 150% within just two to four years.
Despite this, FM teams often struggle to make the business case for proactive investment. “Maintenance remains a hard sell,” the report notes, especially to stakeholders outside the FM function who may not fully grasp its impact on operations and compliance.
Technology: A Slow but Steady Revolution
Digital transformation is widely recognised as a route to both cost savings and improved compliance — yet adoption remains patchy. While 60% of organisations use Computer-Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) systems, uptake of more advanced tools like AI-driven analytics and IoT sensors remains limited.
The barriers? High upfront costs, integration issues with legacy systems, and a chronic shortage of tech-savvy talent in the FM workforce. More than 50% of survey respondents rated digital transformation as highly important to their organisational strategy, but many still lack a clear roadmap for implementation.
To accelerate progress, SFG20 urges organisations to focus on high-impact, ROI-driven technologies and to prioritise skills development alongside system adoption. Peer-to-peer learning and showcasing of successful case studies are also seen as crucial in building sector-wide confidence.
Net Zero: A Slow Burn
Sustainability has become a non-negotiable in FM strategy — but urgency is lacking. Although 38% of organisations have set a 2030 net zero target, only a small fraction allocate more than 30% of their budget to sustainability.
While energy-efficient lighting and HVAC upgrades are widely implemented, other initiatives — especially water conservation and carbon tracking — lag far behind. A striking 30% of organisations don’t even know how much of their budget is dedicated to sustainability efforts.
This lack of clarity stems from multiple sources: absence of defined ownership for sustainability goals, lack of internal expertise, and limited understanding of what actions and data are needed to achieve carbon reduction. The report calls for practical sustainability strategies, tied to measurable milestones and aligned with broader operational goals.
Asset Registers: The Industry’s Hidden Weakness
The quality of asset data — or the lack thereof — is emerging as a critical challenge. Only 9% of FM professionals say their asset register is 100% accurate, while 43% report accuracy below 75%, and 6% don’t have an asset register at all.
Asset registers underpin maintenance schedules, compliance tracking, and cost forecasting. When they are incomplete or outdated, the whole FM strategy is compromised. Most troubling, 34% of organisations either don’t update their asset register or don’t know how often it’s done.
SFG20 stresses that this must change. Standardised, up-to-date, and digitally maintained registers are essential for operational efficiency, risk mitigation, and regulatory compliance. The message is blunt: you can’t manage what you can’t measure.
Skills Crisis: A Sector Understaffed and Overwhelmed
A final thread running through the report is the ongoing workforce shortage. A staggering 80% of FM teams are understaffed — and the shortfall extends across compliance, technical maintenance, digital literacy, and sustainability expertise. Without urgent investment in recruitment and training, the sector’s ability to evolve is at risk.
Future FM professionals will need a hybrid skill set: combining traditional hard services knowledge with digital fluency and sustainability awareness. The report highlights project management, energy management, and data analytics as fast-growing priorities.
The Road Ahead
In summary, the State of Facilities Management Report 2025 paints a picture of a sector at a crossroads. The challenges are serious — from compliance complexity to crippling cost pressures and sluggish tech adoption — but the path forward is clear.
FM must become more strategic, data-driven, and future-ready. That means integrated investment in people, processes, and technology — not just to survive, but to thrive in a built environment that demands safety, efficiency, and environmental responsibility in equal measure.
As Kirsty Cogan, Managing Director at SFG20, puts it: “Compliance is not a tick-box exercise — it is the foundation of safe and resilient buildings. Those who embrace a strategic, data-led approach where compliance, technology, and sustainability work together will be the ones who thrive.”
Note: To evaluate the current state of the facilities management industry, SFG20 conducted a 29-question survey aimed at uncovering the sector’s most pressing challenges and key discussion points. The survey attracted 190 responses from professionals across a wide range of roles within the built environment. This diverse respondent base provides a well-rounded view of FM experiences, making the findings a valuable resource for industry-wide analysis. The detailed report can be found here.