A property developer went bust roughly every 13 hours
The UK Property Developer Insolvency Index tracks official Insolvency Service figures for SIC 411, development of building projects, the classification that captures property developers. In the 12 months to May 2026, 687 of them failed: 38 percent more than in the last year before the pandemic.
Construction is the most insolvent industry in the country, and developers sit inside the worst of it
In the 12 months to 31 May 2026, 3,803 construction companies entered insolvency in England and Wales, more than any other industry and 17 percent of every business failure with a recorded trade. Within that, the Insolvency Service's own industry table records 687 insolvencies against SIC group 411, development of building projects: the code under which property development companies are classified. That is 1.9 developer failures a day, or one roughly every 13 hours, sustained for a full year.
The monthly trend has eased slightly: construction insolvencies across the 12 months were 6 percent lower than the year before. But easing from a record plateau is not recovery. Developer failures remain 38 percent above 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, and have now run at around 650 to 750 a year for four consecutive years, roughly half as high again as anything seen in the late 2010s.
The decade trend
Developer failures stepped up in 2022 and never came back down
Property developer insolvencies by calendar year, England and Wales (SIC 411)
Source: Insolvency Service, Company Insolvency Statistics May 2026, Table 1c. The 12 months to May 2026 (687) span the last two bars.
The step change is unmistakable. Between 2016 and 2019 developer failures climbed gently from 412 to 498 a year. The pandemic support era pushed them artificially low, 343 in 2020, before the withdrawal of support, build cost inflation and the sharpest rate rises in a generation drove the count to 748 in 2022. It has barely moved since: 746, then 655, then 729 in 2025. Elevated developer failure is no longer a spike. It is the operating environment.
Inside the numbers
Where the 3,803 construction failures sit
SIC
Classification
Insolvencies, 12m to May 2026
41
Construction of buildings (division)
1,467
411
of which: development of building projects (property developers)
687
412
of which: construction of residential and non-residential buildings
780
42
Civil engineering (division)
206
43
Specialised construction activities (division)
2,130
F
Construction, whole section
3,803
Specialised trades, the subcontractor base of groundworkers, electricians and fit-out firms, take the largest share at 2,130. But the developer code is the one that measures failed schemes rather than failed trades, and it is the number this index exists to track: 687 companies whose business was bringing development projects to market, gone in a year.
Comment from the desk
"The pattern we see in these figures matches the enquiries that reach us: developers rarely fail at groundworks, they fail at the finish line. A scheme that is built but unsold, sitting on a development facility past its redemption date, is the single most common shape of distress, and it is also the most avoidable one. Of the 687 failures this year, the tragedy is how many were carrying a completed asset worth more than their debt. Development exit finance exists for precisely that moment: it repays the development lender, stops default interest, and gives the scheme the months it needs to sell at proper value instead of at auction. A developer who talks to someone about the exit three months before the redemption date is in a very strong position. Three weeks after it, far less so."
The connection between failure and timing is structural. Development facilities are written to fixed redemption dates set before the first brick is laid, and completed stock takes longer to sell than appraisal-stage optimism assumes. The rescue mechanisms are set out across this site: development exit loans, finish and exit funding for schemes that stall short of completion, and rescue finance for stalled developments.
Notes to editors
Methodology, sources and contact
Data. All figures are taken from the Insolvency Service's official Company Insolvency Statistics for May 2026, published on 19 June 2026, covering registered company insolvencies in England and Wales. Sector figures use the 2007 Standard Industrial Classification: "construction" is SIC Section F, and "property developers" are the narrower SIC group 411, development of building projects, drawn from the Service's published industry data table (Table 1c). Group-level figures are summed from that table and reconcile exactly to the Service's printed construction total of 3,803. Unless stated otherwise, sector counts cover the 12 months to 31 May 2026; the hourly and daily framings divide those totals by 8,760 hours or 365 days. The most recent month is provisional and subject to revision.
Quotable statistics. 687 property developer insolvencies in the 12 months to May 2026, one roughly every 13 hours; 38 percent above the 498 recorded in 2019; a sustained plateau of 650 to 750 failures a year since 2022 against 412 to 498 a year between 2016 and 2019; construction the worst-affected industry with 3,803 insolvencies, 17 percent of all failures with a recorded trade.
Refresh cycle. This index is refreshed after each quarterly release of the underlying statistics. The next edition follows the Insolvency Service's August 2026 publication.
About. Development Exit Property Finance (developmentexitpropertyfinance.co.uk) is a UK brokerage desk specialising in development exit funding: the finance that repays a development facility at practical completion and carries a finished scheme through to sold or refinanced. It is a trading name of Lenzie Consulting Ltd. Analysis in this index may be reproduced with attribution to Development Exit Property Finance and a link to this page.
Media contact.enquiries@developmentexitpropertyfinance.co.uk. Regional or scheme-type cuts of the underlying data, and comment on specific cases in the news, are available on request, usually same day. The full dataset behind this page: CSV download.
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