Britain's Housing Future As mortgage platforms push towards data-driven financial hubs, companies tied to home decarbonisation are bracing for policy wobble, with 2026 shaping up as a decisive year for the housing market.

In Britain's housing economy, the future is being pulled in two directions at once. On one side sits the promise of frictionless technology, data-driven services and platforms ambitious enough to rewire how people buy homes. On the other is a gathering political fog, where once-settled policy goals on climate, energy efficiency and home upgrades are suddenly up for debate.

The tension between those forces is becoming impossible to ignore as companies plan for 2026.

For Chris Goodfellow, chief technology officer at the mortgage platform Acre, the next phase is about scale, data and confidence in technology's ability to reshape even the most conservative corners of the industry.

"Acre started with a vision of making the mortgage process simple, frictionless and less tedious for everyone involved. In 2026, our biggest strategic shift is evolving from a best-in-class mortgage platform into the central cog of both the consumer and the industry's world, becoming an essential financial hub for brokers and homebuyers."

That ambition reflects a broader shift in financial services, where platforms are no longer content to sit at a single transaction point. Instead, they want to become destinations: places consumers return to repeatedly, and where advisers manage entire client relationships over years rather than weeks.

Goodfellow argues that the cultural barriers once assumed to block that vision have already fallen.

"We've shown that even a traditionally tech-phobic adviser market will embrace intuitive technology, helping us grow to 15% market share and reach over 1m homebuyers."

The next challenge, he suggests, is not adoption but depth. Mortgage platforms collect vast amounts of information during the homebuying process, much of which historically goes unused once a deal completes. Acre's strategy is to turn that dormant data into something ongoing.

"Now we're focused on unlocking the full value of the rich data captured throughout the mortgage journey with the industry-leading technology Acre has been building since 2018, utilising blockchain and AI not to tick off a marketing buzzword list, but to deliver real, practical business and consumer impact."

The language reflects an industry increasingly aware of scepticism around emerging technologies. The emphasis is not on novelty, but on usefulness: insights that brokers can act on, and services that make sense to consumers long after moving day.

"By turning that information into ongoing insights and services, we'll help our partners understand the difference between value and hype, deepen client relationships, and give consumers a single destination they return to for managing their long-term financial wellbeing."

Yet while parts of the housing market look to a data-driven, platform-led future, others are confronting a far less predictable landscape. In energy efficiency and home decarbonisation, the problem is not technological ambition but political instability.

Simon Bones, founder and CEO of Genous, a UK company working in the home energy efficiency sector, operating at the intersection of housing, heating and government policy,sees the coming years defined less by innovation than by uncertainty.

"The biggest shift we're facing ahead for 2026 is dealing with political uncertainty - what was previously generally agreed on the direction of travel on environmental matters (i.e. a desire for improvement) and a move towards net zero, is seriously under question."

For companies operating around home upgrades, insulation and low-carbon heating, policy direction is not background noise; it is the market itself. Signals from government shape demand, investment and consumer confidence.

Bones points to a change in tone that has unsettled that environment.

"While there have always been disagreement on the appropriate rate of this change, the Government's response to Reform and its anti-net-zero stance in particular now puts into question whether we're even heading in the same direction or not."

The result, he suggests, is strategic hesitation. Decisions that would once have been made years in advance are now paused, waiting on political clarity.

"Our shift as a company will come post budget, when we'll hopefully get more clarity on the future of the Warm Homes Scheme, for example and the boiler upgrade subsidy."

Together, the two perspectives capture a housing sector at a crossroads. Financial technology firms are pushing forward, betting that better data and better tools can create long-term consumer relationships regardless of the political weather. Meanwhile, businesses tied to environmental policy are finding that uncertainty itself has become the dominant force shaping their plans.

What unites them is timing. Both are looking towards 2026 as a moment of reckoning: for platforms seeking to cement their role at the centre of consumers' financial lives, and for climate-focused companies waiting to see whether government still intends to travel in the same direction at all.

In that gap between technological confidence and political doubt lies a defining question for Britain's housing future: whether innovation can run ahead of policy, or whether uncertainty will slow everything down.