BCIS marks 65 years supporting the construction industry

BCIS is accelerating investment in data, technology and talent to support growing demand for robust cost and carbon insight as it celebrates its 65th anniversary year.

Since becoming independent from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in June 2022, BCIS has more than doubled the size of its team, reflecting its expanding role in supporting consistent benchmarking and informed commercial decision-making amid ongoing cost volatility.

As the leading independent provider of construction data to the built environment and insurance sectors, this growth will position the business to deliver insight to clients operating in a more data intensive environment than ever before.

BCIS CEO Richard Linstead said: “Reaching 65 years is a meaningful marker because it reflects how far both BCIS and the wider industry have come.

“From the outset, BCIS led the move towards more structured cost planning and consistent benchmarking, and that same principle continues to guide how we invest and develop today.

“Since becoming independent, we have focused on strengthening our data, systems and teams so that the insights we provide remain relevant, robust and useful in practice, particularly at a time when the industry is operating under continued economic and commercial pressure.”

Founded in 1961, BCIS has spent more than six decades providing independent cost data to the construction industry.

Over that time, its role has evolved alongside the profession itself, from its origins in the emerging discipline of cost planning during the post-Second World War reconstruction era, through the growing need for standardised benchmarking, to an environment shaped by technological advancement and an increasingly complex commercial landscape.

Today, BCIS maintains a database comprising more than 30,000 cost analyses, supported by over 2,000 published index series and more than 380,000 published individual index figures.

More recently, the BCIS team has also been at the forefront of embodied carbon estimating, empowering cost professionals to carry out whole life carbon assessments.

Linstead added: “Our role as an independent provider is to ensure that decision-makers have access to high-quality evidence they can trust, especially when conditions are uncertain.

“All of our developments are focused on practical outcomes for the industry. By improving how data is captured, structured and applied, BCIS is helping cost, carbon, risk and benchmarking intelligence to be accessed more easily, used more consistently and better aligned with real-world decision-making, whether in cost planning, rebuild valuation, maintenance analysis or asset management.”

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