UK Development Lending Activity Monitor
H1 2026
Published 28 August 2026 · Data cut-off 9 August 2026
Executive summary
Across the 67 lenders we track, 32,719 charges were registered against them at Companies House in H1 2026 — but that figure is overwhelmingly one tier's activity, not the whole development finance market's. The 26 banks and bridging lenders in our "development-active mixed" tier account for 32,059 of those charges — 98.0% of the total — against just 470 from the 31 pure-play specialist development lenders in our set.
That is not a sign specialist development lenders are inactive. It is a sign the England and Wales charge register is a poor instrument for observing them, structurally: mixed-tier lenders' figures above are their WHOLE secured-charge book (bridging, BTL and development charges together, undifferentiated in the register), while the specialist tier's figures are development lending specifically. The two columns are not measuring the same thing, and Section 2 sets out exactly why before any number here is used for anything.
16 of the 31 specialist development lenders in our set registered zero charges in H1 2026. Several of those — including some of the better-known names in the space — very likely lend through numbered SPVs, offshore vehicles or trustee structures whose charges, where registered at all, may not attribute cleanly back to the parent lender in the register — a plausible explanation for the pattern, not a confirmed one for any individual lender. A zero here should be read as "not observed," not "not lending."
Concentration within the specialist-development tier, measured on H1 2026 charge share, gives an HHI of 1087 — below the 1,500 threshold used in the US DOJ/FTC Horizontal Merger Guidelines as a general benchmark for an unconcentrated market (UK CMA screening practice uses a related but not identical set of reference bands), though on a small and register-limited base (see Section 2). No lender from either the specialist-development or institutional-credit tiers appears in the top 10 lenders by H1 charge volume; every name in Section 4's table is a mixed-book bank or bridging lender.
1. What this monitor measures, and what it cannot
We are explicit about this before any figure is used, because the distinction governs how every number below should be read.
This monitor is built from a single primary source: Companies House charge registrations against a tracked set of UK development, bridging and institutional real-estate credit lenders, held in the Construction Capital data lake.
What a charge registration observes
A charge registration is a lender taking security against a borrower's assets — it is evidence a facility completed, not evidence of a development scheme's outcome, size, or asset class. It says nothing about loan-to-value, loan-to-cost, pricing, or whether the facility funded a development scheme specifically rather than another form of secured lending.
Tier definitions matter more than usual here. Development finance activity is measured across three lender tiers: specialist development (pure-play development lenders whose whole charge book is development lending), development-active mixed (banks and bridging lenders with a substantial development arm, whose charges cover their wider short-term property funding book, not development lending alone), and institutional credit (institutional real-estate credit funds, reported as a separate cut).
In practice: specialist-development-tier figures are a genuine development-lending signal. Mixed-tier figures are a whole-book secured-lending signal that INCLUDES development lending but is not limited to it — reading the mixed tier's charge count as "development loans arranged" would overstate the true development-specific figure substantially.
2. Tier composition
H1 2026 charges registered, by tier. 32,059 for development-active mixed lenders, 470 for specialist development lenders, 190 for institutional credit funds.
Institutional credit funds — 10 tracked, typically lending at larger scale and lower frequency than a bridging-style specialist — registered only 190 charges across the half, with 9 showing zero. This tier's true activity is the least visible of the three in charge data: institutional facilities are more likely to be structured through holdco security, offshore SPVs or syndicated trustee arrangements that don't register a charge naming the operating lender directly — the same structural point the wider Construction Capital research programme has found in other asset classes with concentrated institutional capital.
3. Who's actually quiet
16 of 31 specialist development lenders (51.6%) registered zero charges in H1 2026 — and the tier's substantial all-time charge total (9,689 charges across 31 lenders) suggests this reflects genuine historical lending activity rather than dormant or shell entities, though we cannot confirm that holds for every individual quiet lender from tier-level figures alone. That combination (zero this half, a real history at tier level) is consistent with a lender whose current-period charges are registered elsewhere: via an SPV, an offshore vehicle, or a security trustee not captured in our canonical lender-name matching.
We would not read a quiet H1 as those lenders having withdrawn from the market on this evidence alone — but a reader relying on charge data to judge who's actively lending right now should treat a zero as a data-visibility gap to check directly with the lender, not as a market signal.
4. The ten most active names by H1 charge volume
| Lender | Tier | H1 2026 charges | All-time charges |
|---|---|---|---|
| Together | Mixed | 8,465 | 71,050 |
| Aldermore Bank | Mixed | 4,431 | 43,455 |
| LendInvest | Mixed | 3,373 | 26,546 |
| Shawbrook Bank | Mixed | 3,233 | 43,762 |
| Paragon Bank | Mixed | 3,184 | 70,972 |
| InterBay Funding | Mixed | 3,152 | 44,331 |
| Hampshire Trust Bank | Mixed | 1,002 | 10,489 |
| Quantum Mortgages | Mixed | 687 | 3,264 |
| Fortys Capital | Mixed | 573 | 3,802 |
| MS Lending Group | Mixed | 559 | 3,301 |
Every name in this table sits in the development-active mixed tier — a real, notable finding rather than an artefact of tier size (the mixed tier has 26 lenders against the specialist tier's 31, so it isn't simply a bigger pool). Remember the caveat from Section 1: these are whole-book secured-charge counts, not a ranking of development-lending volume specifically.
Methodology and data provenance
- ·Source: Companies House charge register, tracked against a canonical set of 67 UK development finance, bridging and institutional real-estate credit lenders, held in the Construction Capital data lake. Snapshot as of 9 August 2026.
- ·Tiering (specialist development / development-active mixed / institutional credit) is assigned per lender based on the lender's stated business model and product range, not derived from the charge data itself.
- ·H1 2026 concentration (HHI) is computed on charge-count share within the specialist-development tier only, since that is the tier where charge count most directly proxies development-lending activity.
Known limitations
- Mixed-tier charge counts are whole secured-charge-book totals, not development-lending-specific totals — do not quote them as a development loan count.
- 25 lenders across the specialist and institutional tiers show zero H1 2026 charges; this is very likely a register-visibility gap (SPV/offshore/trustee structures), not evidence those lenders stopped lending.
- A charge registration is evidence a facility completed; it carries no loan-to-value, pricing, term or asset-class information.
- HHI is computed on a charge-count basis within one tier only and should not be read as a market-share measure of lending value.
- This monitor tracks a canonical set of 67 lenders identified as active in development, bridging or institutional real-estate credit — it is not an exhaustive census of every UK lender in these markets, and every total here covers this tracked set only, not the whole market.
Questions on this report
Does this report tell me which lender offers the best terms?
No — charge-registration volume is not a measure of pricing, leverage or service quality. It tells you how active a lender's charge book has been, not how good their terms are for your scheme.
Why don't the tier totals match "development loans arranged"?
Because the mixed tier's charges cover a lender's whole secured book (bridging, BTL and development together) — see Section 1 for why that distinction matters.
This report is general market commentary compiled from the public Companies House charge register and is not lending, investment or financial advice. Figures are as extracted on the stated cut-off date; the public register is subject to revision and backfill.