The Department for Education’s first School Estate Management Standards annual return opens in September 2026, marking another important step in the changing approach to how school estates are managed across England.

The return asks responsible bodies to assess how effectively they are meeting the School Estate Management Standards and will give the DfE a clearer picture of estate management capability across the sector.

For schools and academy trusts, however, this is about more than completing another annual return. It forms part of a much wider move towards more structured, strategic and data-led estate management.

What is the School Estate Management Standards annual return?

The School Estate Management Standards provide a framework to help schools and responsible bodies understand what effective estate management should look like.

The standards are structured across four levels:

Level 1 – Baseline
The essential practices that should be in place as a starting point.

Level 2 – Transitioning
The key steps towards developing stronger estate management practices.

Level 3 – Fully Effective
The components expected to be in place for an estate to be managed efficiently and effectively.

Level 4 – Advanced
Additional practices for organisations wishing to develop beyond the fully effective standard.

The DfE expects responsible bodies to work towards Level 3 – Fully Effective, although it has made clear that it does not expect every organisation to have reached this level already. The new annual return provides a way for responsible bodies to assess where they currently sit against these standards and identify areas where further development may be required.

Who needs to complete the return?

The DfE is asking all school responsible bodies eligible for annual DfE capital funding to submit a return.

This includes:

• multi-academy trusts
• single-academy trusts
• local authorities
• sixth-form colleges
• dioceses

Individual schools, nurseries and other educational settings do not submit their own separate return. For voluntary-aided schools, the relevant diocese will complete and submit the return, seeking information from schools or governing bodies where required. For multi-academy trusts, this means the return is completed at responsible body level rather than separately for each academy. Schools may therefore still be asked to contribute information about their estate, depending on how their responsible body chooses to coordinate the return.

When does the 2026 annual return open?

For the 2026/27 academic year, submissions open in the third week of September 2026. The DfE has currently stated that the deadline will be in late November 2026. Responsible bodies should therefore use the period before submissions open to make sure the appropriate people are involved and that access to the required DfE systems is already in place.

How will the return work?

The return is completed through the DfE’s Manage Your Education Estate service using DfE Sign-in.

It uses multiple-choice questions and the DfE estimates that it will take approximately one hour to complete.

Supporting documents do not need to be uploaded.

Organisations can either ask different people to complete sections relevant to their responsibilities or have one person in a senior estate management role complete the return in consultation with colleagues.

Importantly, the final submission must be made by someone in a senior estate management role.

Progress can be saved and answers reviewed or amended before submission.

What should responsible bodies do before starting?

Although the return itself is designed to be relatively straightforward, it provides a useful opportunity to consider how effectively the estate is being managed in practice.

Before completing it, responsible bodies should review the School Estate Management Standards and consider where there may be gaps.

Some useful questions to ask include:

• Do we have a clear estate strategy and defined responsibilities?

• Is our information about buildings, assets and condition current and reliable?

• Are our principal estate risks identified, recorded and prioritised?

• Do we understand which major building components and systems are approaching the end of their expected life?

• Are statutory compliance requirements appropriately managed and monitored?

• Do we have a clear programme for planned maintenance and future capital investment?

• Are estate risks and priorities regularly reported to senior leaders, governors or trustees?

• Do the people responsible for the estate have the appropriate competency, knowledge and support?

• Are sustainability, resilience and future educational requirements considered within our estate planning?

The purpose isn’t simply to be able to answer the questions in the return.

It is to understand whether the systems behind those answers are genuinely working.

What if your organisation isn’t currently meeting Level 3?

The DfE has explicitly stated that it does not expect every responsible body to already be operating at Level 3. It has also confirmed that there is no penalty or criticism for organisations that are not currently meeting the standards, and the annual return will not affect the amount of DfE funding an organisation receives. Where improvement is required, the DfE intends to provide support, which may include peer support, training or other non-financial assistance.

Responsible bodies should therefore see the return as an opportunity to understand their current position and identify priorities for improvement rather than simply treating it as a compliance exercise.

What happens after the return is submitted?

Following submission, organisations can choose to view the levels of the School Estate Management Standards they are currently meeting, calculated from their answers.

They will also be able to provide feedback, including whether they agree with the assessed levels and information about any barriers preventing them from meeting the standards. This is potentially one of the more useful elements of the process, it gives responsible bodies an opportunity to move from simply identifying weaknesses to developing a clear improvement plan.

The Bigger Picture: Why This Matters

The annual return should not be looked at in isolation.

The DfE’s Education Estates Strategy sets out a longer-term move towards better estate information, common data standards and more strategic decision-making. Manage Your Education Estate has been introduced as the central digital service through which responsible bodies can access estate guidance, condition information, funding allocations and funding opportunities. From autumn 2027, the DfE intends for responsible bodies to collect their own estate data using common standards and digital tools.

By 2028, the intention is for two-way data sharing between responsible bodies and the DfE to create a better shared understanding of the condition and requirements of the education estate.

The first annual return in autumn 2026 should therefore be seen as part of this wider transition.

From Reactive to Strategic Estate Management

For many schools, estate management has historically been driven by immediate need.

A roof leaks.
A boiler fails.
A compliance issue is identified.
Funding becomes available.

The issue is addressed and attention moves onto the next priority. While unexpected building issues will always occur, the direction of travel is increasingly towards understanding risks before they become emergencies. That requires good condition information, appropriate surveys, clear risk prioritisation and a realistic medium- to long-term asset management plan.

For responsible bodies, the question is increasingly moving from:

“What do we need to fix now?”

to:

“What is our estate likely to need over the next three to five years, and how are we going to manage it?”

How ECS Can Support

Education Consultancy Services works with schools, academies and multi-academy trusts to help them understand their estates and plan future investment.

Our support includes:

• estate and condition surveys
• asset management planning
• estate strategy and capital planning
• compliance and condition reviews
• project prioritisation
• capital funding strategy and applications
• project management and delivery

With the School Estate Management Standards annual return beginning this autumn, now is a useful opportunity for responsible bodies to review the quality of their estate information and identify any areas where further work may be required.

For further information or to discuss your estate priorities, you can message us at enquiries@education-consultancy.uk.