Development Lending Monitor: H1 2026

Development-active lenders registered 32,529 new secured facilities against UK borrowers in H1 2026, +16.6% against the same period last year. Quarter by quarter the market was remarkably steady: 16,191 charges in 2026-Q1 and 16,338 in 2026-Q2, each against roughly 9,800 distinct borrower companies.

Pure-play development lenders wrote 470 facilities over the same period (404 in the prior-year period). The wider register, all lenders of every kind, recorded 121,546 charges, so development-active lenders account for roughly 27% of all UK secured lending events by count.

New vehicles matter: 24% of facilities in the latest quarter were written against companies incorporated within the previous twelve months, the classic single-scheme SPV pattern.

35 lenders in our development-active set wrote three or more facilities in the latest quarter. The five most active accounted for 70% of activity and the top ten for 88%, a Herfindahl-Hirschman index of 1,306, which competition authorities would class as moderately concentrated. We publish concentration only in aggregate; this Monitor does not rank or name individual lenders.

Breadth has practical meaning for borrowers: a moderately concentrated market with 35 genuinely active lenders is one where terms are still won by shopping the whole market rather than defaulting to the biggest names.

The clearest trend in the data is in how quickly facilities are redeemed. Of loans originated in 2021, 7.1% were satisfied within 18 months. That figure has risen every cohort since: 11.1% for the 2024 cohort (49,861 facilities). These are fixed-window rates, so recent cohorts are only included once every loan has had the full 18 months to run; the comparison is like for like.

Faster redemption is consistent with what the refinance data shows below: an active exit and refinance market pulling loans off books earlier.

Where two charges are registered against the same property title by unrelated lenders, the sequencing reveals the product. In H1 2026 we identified 799 refinance events (a senior charge satisfied at or near the registration of a successor) and 779 third-party junior charges registered alongside a live senior facility, the signature of mezzanine and second-charge lending. Related-party structures such as a lender's own security trustee are excluded from both counts.

This edition of the Monitor is built from every mortgage and charge registered at Companies House, cross-referenced against a curated set of development-active lenders in three tiers: pure-play development lenders, banks and bridging lenders with substantial development arms, and institutional real estate credit. Lender identities are resolved through their funding-line vehicles and security trustees, so lending through numbered SPVs is captured against the economic lender. No individual lender is named or ranked in this publication; concentration is reported only in aggregate.

Charge data runs to 2026-07-31; satisfaction filings to 2026-08-03. Companies House filings record no loan values (a 2013 reform removed the amount-secured field), so activity is measured in charge registrations and distinct borrower counts, never estimated loan books.

Regional attribution uses the postcode of the charged property, extracted from the legal particulars of each charge, not the borrower's registered office. Property postcodes are recoverable for 81% of ecosystem charges; regional figures are shares of that covered set. Coverage is England and Wales. Any cut with fewer than 30 observations is suppressed rather than published.

Full methodology, definitions and revision policy: Monitor methodology. The underlying aggregates are published as open data on the report page.

A market writing roughly 1,250 secured facilities a week across 35 active lenders is a market with genuine competition for good schemes. Pricing and leverage still vary widely between lenders, which is exactly where whole-of-market advice earns its keep.

Construction Capital arranges development finance, bridging and development exit facilities across the lenders behind these numbers. To discuss a scheme, call +44 20 3816 3693 or start with the deal room.