Facilities Management is entering a defining decade. Artificial intelligence is moving from experiment to everyday use, buildings are generating more operational data than ever, sustainability requirements are tightening and resilience has become a board-level concern. Together, these forces are moving FM from the background to the centre of organisational strategy.
Facilities Management 2035 is Maxwell Stephens' flagship report on how the profession is likely to evolve over the next ten years, and what FM leaders and the organisations that employ them should do to prepare.
Part One examines the forces reshaping the workplace: the workplace as an ecosystem, the rise of intelligent buildings, artificial intelligence becoming infrastructure, sustainability moving from initiative to obligation, workplace experience as a competitive advantage, the psychology of future workplaces and organisational resilience.
Part Two turns to the people who will lead it: the future FM workforce, AI-enabled FM teams, the skills every FM leader will need, data-driven leadership, the FM Director of 2035 and Facilities Management as strategic infrastructure.
The report closes with a practical action plan for FM leaders and employers, and a ten-question readiness check to test how prepared your organisation is for the decade ahead.
What the data says
The evidence behind the shift: carbon, AI adoption, skills and data.
- By the mid-2030s, buildings are predicted to become the UK's highest-emitting sector in the Government's trajectory. Source: UK Green Building Council, CCC Progress Report 2026: Buildings are now the UK's biggest climate test
- 80% of the buildings that will be occupied in 2050 already exist, making decarbonising existing stock a major priority. Source: UK Green Building Council, Climate Change Mitigation
- 28% of organisations worldwide have embedded AI in their FM operations, rising to 46% for organisations with 100,000+ employees. Source: JLL, Global State of Facilities Management Report 2025
- 51% of organisations surveyed by SFG20 in 2026 reported a shortage of FM staff. Source: SFG20 State of FM survey, reported by TWinFM, 2026
- 86% of UK businesses handle digitised data, but only 25% of those analyse it to generate new insights or knowledge. Source: Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (GOV.UK), UK Business Data Survey 2026
See it in practice
Director of Property Services & Sustainability for Poundland & Dealz
Poundland & Dealz engaged Maxwell Stephens to recruit a Director of Property Services and Sustainability, combining store development, facilities management, procurement, utilities, waste and environmental performance across a large UK and Ireland estate. The appointment needed a leader who could balance value retail's tight cost discipline with sustainability programmes that require investment and a longer payback horizon. It is a clear example of the converged, board-facing FM leadership role this report expects to become the norm by 2035.
Read the full case study or browse all case studies.
Related reading
- Facilities Management Trends Employers Should Watch
- AI Won't Replace Facilities Management Professionals, But It Will Transform Their Roles
- How Facilities Management Is Changing the Workplace
Practical guides
Free Maxwell Stephens guides on the same subject:
- Smart Buildings and the Future of FM Operations
- The Future of AI-Enabled FM Teams
- The Modern FM Director
- FM as Strategic Infrastructure
- Recruiting Facilities Management Leaders
Who this resource is for
Facilities Directors, Heads of Facilities, workplace and estates leaders, property professionals, HR leaders and executives planning how their FM function, and the leaders who run it, need to change before 2035.
Talk to Maxwell Stephens
Maxwell Stephens is a specialist Facilities Management recruitment consultancy. If you are planning an FM, estates or workplace appointment, contact us for a confidential conversation, or read our case studies to see how comparable searches were run.