AI future

Ask a UK facilities manager what keeps them up at night and the answer has not changed dramatically in years: ageing equipment, budget pressure, compliance obligations, and a workload that never shrinks. What has changed is the backdrop against which those familiar pressures are felt, as shifting priorities and new technologies shape strategy and disrupt established ways of working.

MRI Software’s Voice of the Facilities Manager survey, conducted in partnership with FMJ Magazine, offers a snapshot of the sector as AI technology stands ready to drive the latest round of transformation. Gathering insights from 188 UK-based FM professionals across a broad range of sectors and organisation sizes, the survey provides the clearest picture yet of where the industry stands on the threshold of a genuinely transformative period.

BUILDING THE NEXT GENERATION OF FM PROFESSIONALS

The demographic profile of the survey respondents is itself significant. Over 60 per cent of participants are aged 46 or above, with those over 55 forming the single largest age group at 34 per cent. Fewer than 10 per cent are aged between 25 and 35. This is not a new observation for those who know the FM sector well, but it takes on fresh urgency in a survey focused on AI readiness and digital transformation. The profession is asking its most experienced practitioners to lead a technological transition at a moment when many of those individuals are approaching the latter stages of their careers.

Succession planning has emerged as a major concern as a result: 48 per cent of respondents describe it as a significant challenge in their FM team. Against this backdrop, the strategies organisations are deploying to attract younger talent, flexible working (33 per cent), apprenticeships (29 per cent), and the promotion of technology-driven roles (17 per cent), are encouraging. But they will need to be backed by genuine commitment if the sector is to build the pipeline of digitally literate FM professionals it will need in the decade ahead.

THE REAL AI CHALLENGE? FILLING THE DATA GAP

The most striking finding in this year’s survey is not about AI itself, but about the foundation on which any AI ambition must be built. When asked how confident they are that their FM data is robust enough to support AI, automation, or digital decision-making, just 5 per cent of respondents said they were very confident. Over half, 52 per cent, said they were not very confident or not confident at all.

This is a frank admission, and a revealing one. The promise of AI in facilities management, from predictive maintenance to automated compliance reporting to intelligent energy management, depends entirely on the quality and consistency of the data feeding those systems. Organisations that have spent years collecting data in inconsistent formats, across disconnected systems, or not collecting it at all, cannot expect to simply plug in an AI tool and see transformative results.

The message here is not that AI is out of reach for UK FM teams, but that for many organisations, the first step on the AI journey is not selecting a platform, but investing in the less glamorous but essential work of data governance: standardising how information is captured, ensuring systems talk to each other, and establishing performance metrics that generate consistent, reliable data over time.

AI AWARENESS GROWING, BUT MORE TRAINING REQUIRED

On AI itself, the survey reflects a sector in transition. The average importance score assigned to AI within respondents’ organisations was 5 out of 10, speaking to growing awareness without yet reflecting widespread organisational commitment.

When asked about the expected impacts of AI on their roles, 27 per cent cited enhanced efficiencies, 19 per cent improved decision-making, and 19 per cent streamlined data analysis. Just 5 per cent expressed concern about job displacement, a figure that has remained consistently low across successive iterations of this survey and across different geographies. UK FM professionals, like their EMEA counterparts, broadly view AI as a tool that will make their jobs more effective rather than one that will make them redundant.

However, a deeper look at the data reveals a knowledge gap that will need to be addressed. When the survey asked about agentic AI, defined as AI systems that act autonomously to achieve goals, more than half of respondents (53 per cent) said they were not familiar with the concept. This is understandable: agentic AI is a relatively recent development even in technology circles. But as autonomous systems begin to appear within mainstream FM platforms, the sector will need to build the conceptual understanding to engage with them critically and to govern their use appropriately.

It is worth noting that AI and data analytics have leapt to the top of the training priority list: 18 per cent of respondents identified it as a required or desired area of development over the next 12-18 months, making it the most commonly cited training need, ahead of even legal and compliance (15 per cent) and IoT and smart building technologies (14 per cent). The appetite to develop AI capability is clearly there. The challenge is translating that appetite into accessible, practical training that FM professionals can apply in their day-to-day roles.