By Ian Rogers, CEO and Chief Visionary Officer of Procync
In housing development today, risk is piling up and it’s landing heavily on the shoulders of developers. If you’re leading a residential or commercial project in the current climate, there’s no doubt that you already know this. You’re signing up to fixed costs and tight programmes while working with incomplete designs, volatile markets and delivery structures that give you limited control over what really happens on site.
The weight of responsibility
After four decades in the construction and property industry, I’ve noticed a worrying pattern that’s becoming harder to ignore: developers are being handed more risk than ever, while having less control over how that risk is managed. It’s not new, but it is getting worse. I speak to developers all the time who are signing up to tight budgets and delivery timelines based on incomplete information, partial designs and optimistic assumptions. Then, once the wheels are in motion, the decision-making power shifts – whether that’s to consultants, contractors, subcontractors, and yet it’s the developer who’s still carrying the liability if something goes wrong.
That imbalance is now built into how we deliver. Procurement has become more fragmented, and pressure to get sites moving quickly means early-stage thinking is compressed or skipped. The project brief is also rarely fixed before work gets underway, and operating assumptions are vague. Despite all of that, developers are expected to fix costs, programme of works, and quality outcomes before anything concrete is known, sometimes literally.
What’s striking is how much responsibility is placed on the developer without the governance or information to back it up. You’re accountable for the end product, but once contracts are let, visibility becomes patchy, and control becomes abstract. It’s not just about delivery risk either. The regulatory load has increased dramatically too, especially under the 2022 Building Safety Act, where client-side duties now include everything from ensuring competency to maintaining the ‘golden thread’ of information across a building’s life.
Why it’s getting harder to deliver
In high-risk buildings, the role of ‘accountable person’ now rests with the client or owner. That means developers must take ownership not just of delivery, but of long-term performance and safety too. These aren’t paper responsibilities, but ones that carry real legal weight. They demand a level of project-wide coordination and information management that many current delivery models simply don’t support.
The business context makes this even harder. Build costs remain volatile, materials inflation peaked at over 23% in 2022 according to the Construction Leadership Council, and while it has stabilised slightly, costs for key inputs such as concrete, timber and steel remain high. Labour shortages aren’t easing either. CITB estimates suggest we’ll need over 250,000 additional construction workers by 2028 to meet current demand. In that environment, delivery certainty is harder to achieve, yet developers are being asked to promise it anyway.
Too few developers have real influence over the risks they’re expected to absorb. In most projects, the major commercial and operational decisions; design, contracts, supply chain, are already locked in by the time construction begins.
At that point, developers aren’t managing the project; they’re managing exposure, which means reacting to issues rather than preventing them, working within constraints they didn’t set, and trying to limit the damage from risks they had little say in creating. So the question is: what would it look like if they had more control?
Designing for control at the outset
For me, it starts much earlier, at project setup. I’d argue that developers should have far more say in shaping how a project is structured from the outset. That means resisting the pressure to rush to procurement before the brief is clear. It means investing more time in feasibility and viability testing, challenging design assumptions and defining operational outcomes before a single contractor is appointed. I appreciate that’s not always easy, especially in a commercial environment where pace is often seen as progress, but most of the cost and programme problems I’m brought in to fix later could have been avoided with better front-end thinking.
Control also comes through the delivery structure. Not every project suits a full alliance or framework model, but I do think developers should be more willing to explore routes that give them greater visibility and collaboration. Early contractor involvement, two-stage tendering, and more integrated teams all create more opportunities to align delivery around shared outcomes. That’s not about developers doing more themselves but it’s about setting up teams that are better joined-up, with clearer accountability.
Technology can help as well, but only if it’s embedded in the right way. I’ve seen too many dashboards and reporting tools that look great in principle but aren’t used consistently or don’t inform decisions. Where digital tools do work, especially around tracking design progress, programme risk or compliance obligations, it is because there’s a governance structure behind them that makes the data matter. If developers want more control, they need both the data and the authority to act on it.
Setting the terms from day one
Developers should not be expected to carry risk by default. If projects continue to be structured in ways that expose the client while limiting their control, the industry will keep repeating the same mistakes; cost overruns, delays, and compromised quality. In a sector where margins are tight, regulatory demands are rising, and reputational stakes are high, this model is no longer fit for purpose.
Greater control begins at the outset. That means asking the right questions early on: Is the scope clearly defined? Are responsibilities aligned? How will information be managed? And what’s really driving decisions around programme and procurement?
The most successful developments are not those that push risk downstream, but those built on clear accountability, early coordination, and structures that empower rather than constrain. It’s time to stop rewarding risk absorption and start prioritising smart control.