BS 8674:2025 — the code of practice setting out a framework for the competence of individual fire risk assessors — was published by the British Standards Institution on 15 August 2025. It is the first British Standard to define fire risk assessor competence as a graded structure rather than a single bar: Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced, set against the risk and complexity of the building being assessed.
Before it, competence sat inside individual scheme rules and training records, with no shared national reference point for what "competent" meant at different levels of building risk. BS 8674 doesn't replace those schemes, and it doesn't assess the fire risk assessment process itself. It defines what an individual assessor needs to know and demonstrate to be trusted with a given tier of building — a narrower job than it sounds, and worth understanding precisely before it shows up in a scheme registration or a CV.
Three tiers, one framework
The standard sets three tiers. Foundation is for simple, low-risk buildings with minimal occupancy — a small office or a single retail unit. Intermediate covers buildings of moderate complexity and broader use. Advanced is for high-risk, complex environments: large residential blocks, care facilities and public entertainment venues, where the consequences of an assessor missing something are correspondingly severe.
Where a given building actually sits is a judgement, not a rule fixed to height or floor area alone. Occupancy, escape arrangements and a building's history all weigh in, and a modest-looking building with an unrecorded alteration history can sit above a larger one with a clean record and simple layout. That judgement is exactly what should be agreed at the start of an instruction, before the assessment itself begins.
What the tiers don't cover
BS 8674 is deliberately narrow. It covers the competence of the individual carrying out a non-invasive, visual fire risk assessment of an occupied building and interpreting its existing records — not the assessment process itself, not invasive or destructive inspection, not fire engineering activity, and not the competence of the organisation the assessor works for. A firm can hold every scheme registration going and still put an under-tiered assessor on a complex building; the standard's scope is the person doing the work, not the letterhead above them.
How the tiers are reaching the market
Two established routes are now built around the framework. BAFE published version 6 of its Life Safety Fire Risk Assessment scheme, SP205, on 7 November 2025, mapped directly to the BS 8674 tiers and delivered through the accredited certification bodies NSI and SSAIB, whose assessors now judge registered firms against foundation, intermediate and advanced competence rather than a single scheme bar. Existing registered organisations have a two-year window to transfer to the new version, so the two versions of SP205 are still circulating side by side.
The Institution of Fire Engineers has separately announced a new fire risk assessment qualification series aligned to the same three tiers, with its first exam session in October 2026 and bookings opening from 1 June 2026. Ahead of that sitting, regulated qualifications are already appearing under the tier names directly: a Level 3 Certificate in Foundation Fire Risk Assessment and a Level 4 Certificate in Intermediate Fire Risk Assessment are both live, each assessed by portfolio over roughly three to four months.
What to ask when you procure an assessment
Until the training and certification market catches up fully, a duty-holder asking "what tier are you?" may get an answer based on years of experience and self-assessment rather than a mapped qualification or scheme registration — worth establishing which it is. The useful questions are specific: which tier does the assessor say they work to, does that tier match the building being assessed, and what evidence sits behind the answer — a qualification, a scheme registration mapped to BS 8674, a CPD record. A long career is not the same evidence as a mapped competence tier, and for the next two to three years both will still be circulating in the same market.
What good looks like
A well-run instruction records which tier the building was scoped at, why, and what evidence supported the assessor's fit for it — the same discipline that already applies to choosing a Type 1 to Type 4 assessment under BS 9792:2025. That record is what a regulator or a fire and rescue service audit will ask for if the assessment is ever questioned. Apex agrees the assessor's tier with the client at the scoping stage, alongside the assessment type, before any instruction starts.
Common questions
What are the three BS 8674:2025 competence tiers?
Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced. Foundation applies to simple, low-risk buildings with minimal occupancy; Intermediate to buildings of moderate complexity and broader use; Advanced to high-risk, complex buildings such as large residential blocks, care facilities and entertainment venues. The tier reflects the risk of the building, not the assessor's general length of experience.
Does BS 8674:2025 replace BAFE SP205 or the IFE's qualifications?
No. BS 8674 is the underlying competence framework; SP205 and the IFE's qualification series are separate schemes and qualifications that have been mapped, or are being mapped, to its three tiers. It is worth asking directly whether an assessor's scheme registration or qualification is actually mapped to BS 8674, rather than assuming it because the standard is mentioned.
How do I check which tier my building needs?
There is no simple lookup table by building type or height. The tier depends on occupancy, escape arrangements and the building's history, and should be agreed with the assessor at the scoping stage, with the reasoning recorded — the same approach already used to justify a Type 1 to Type 4 assessment under BS 9792:2025.