The Biggest Challenges Facing Facilities Managers Today

Facilities Managers keep buildings safe, compliant and working, and the job has rarely been harder. The scope has widened from maintenance and services into carbon, workplace strategy, technology and risk, while budgets and teams have not grown at the same rate.

These are the pressures we hear about most, both from the Facilities Managers we speak to and from the organisations that hire them.

1. Compliance and building safety

Compliance remains the core of the role and the part with the most serious consequences. HSE figures show that 126 workers were killed in work-related accidents in Great Britain in 2025/26, and that workplace injuries and ill health from current working conditions cost an estimated £22.9 billion in 2023/24.

The building safety regime has added another layer. Higher-risk buildings (at least 18 metres or seven storeys with at least two residential units, or hospitals and care homes) now come under the Building Safety Regulator, and remediation of unsafe cladding is far from finished: only 39% of monitored buildings with unsafe cladding had completed remediation by the end of July 2026. For FM teams in residential, healthcare and mixed-use estates, the documentation and competence requirements are a significant workload.

2. Cost pressure

JLL found that 84% of FM leaders worldwide name escalating operating costs and budget constraints as their top concern. Energy, labour and contract costs have all risen, while organisations expect facilities budgets to hold or fall. The National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over rose to £12.71 an hour from April 2026, which feeds straight into cleaning, security and catering contracts.

The challenge is not only finding savings. It is protecting service quality and compliance while doing it, and explaining the trade-offs clearly to finance.

3. Ageing buildings and maintenance backlogs

Many estates are older than the systems now expected of them. In the public sector the scale is well documented: the estimated cost to eradicate backlog maintenance across the NHS estate in England reached £15.9 billion in 2024/25, and the Department for Education estimated the condition need of the school estate in England at £11.4 billion. Facilities Managers in these estates spend much of their time ranking risks against budgets that cannot cover everything.

4. Sustainability targets

The UK Green Building Council estimates that 19% of the UK's carbon footprint comes from the energy used to heat, cool and power buildings. Organisations with net zero commitments increasingly look to FM to deliver them, often without dedicated capital. Balancing carbon reduction against cost and operational risk is now a routine part of the job.

5. Hybrid working and changing occupancy

Offices are used differently now. The British Council for Offices reports that Tuesday to Thursday occupancy averages 40% in UK offices, compared with 30% across all weekdays. That creates busy mid-week peaks and quiet Mondays and Fridays, which complicates space planning, cleaning schedules, catering and energy management. Facilities Managers have to design services for a building that is half empty one day and full the next.

6. Managing outsourced services

Cleaning, security, maintenance and catering are commonly delivered by contractors. Managing them well takes clear specifications, regular performance reviews, robust safety oversight and a good working relationship. When a contractor underperforms, it is the Facilities Manager who answers to building users, even though someone else delivers the service.

7. Technology, data and cyber risk

Buildings now rely on connected systems for heating, access, lighting and security. That brings better data, but also new risks. The Government's Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 found that 43% of UK businesses experienced a breach or attack in the previous 12 months. Building systems are part of that attack surface, and FM teams increasingly need to agree with IT how they are secured.

8. Recruiting and keeping good people

All of this depends on capable teams, and they are hard to find. In SFG20's 2026 survey, 51% of organisations reported a shortage of FM staff. Experienced engineers and supervisors are in particular demand, and Facilities Managers often end up covering the gaps themselves.

What helps

The Facilities Managers who handle these pressures best tend to share a few habits:

• they keep a clear, risk-ranked view of compliance and maintenance;
• they translate building issues into cost and risk language for senior leaders;
• they invest in contractor relationships before problems arise; and
• they build teams with complementary skills rather than trying to cover everything themselves.

For employers, the lesson is that the Facilities Manager role has grown. Job descriptions written five years ago often understate it, and salaries set against an old brief can make good candidates hard to attract.

Talk to Maxwell Stephens

If you are hiring a Facilities Manager and want to understand what the market expects of the role today, talk to our team. If you are a Facilities Manager weighing up your next move, the Facilities Management jobs we are handling span the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.