An Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) checks that the wiring, consumer unit and fixed electrics in a property are safe — it's the report landlords are legally required to renew every 5 years, and one that homeowners and businesses commission for their own peace of mind. From 1 October 2026, the rules around who is allowed to actually carry one out are changing significantly.
This isn't a change to how often you need an EICR, or who needs one. It's a change to the competence bar every individual electrician has to clear before they're allowed to sign one off. Here's exactly what's changing, why, and what it means depending on whether you're booking an inspection or carrying one out.
The change comes from a revision to the Electrotechnical Assessment Specification (EAS) — the industry standard that competent person scheme providers (such as NICEIC, NAPIT and the ECA) use to assess and register electrical firms. Under the current, older model, a firm could rely on a single "Qualified Supervisor" (QS) holding the right qualifications, while other operatives carried out periodic inspection and testing based on experience alone, working under that QS's oversight.
From 1 October 2026, that changes. The EAS shifts from firm-level competence to individual mandatory competence: every person who personally carries out periodic inspection and testing has to meet the qualification and experience bar themselves, regardless of who supervises them.
From 1 October 2026, every individual carrying out periodic inspection and testing must hold all of the following:
This applies to each employed person doing the work, not just the firm's named Qualified Supervisor.
Competent person scheme providers assess firms against the EAS as part of ongoing registration. Firms that can't evidence individual competence for everyone carrying out periodic inspection and testing face corrective action plans, restrictions on their scope of registered work, and ultimately the removal of periodic inspection and testing from what they're authorised to certify.
No. If you're a landlord, your obligation to renew an EICR at least every 5 years under the Electrical Safety Standards Regulations still stands exactly as before — nothing here changes how often you need one, or who needs one. What changes is a quality control measure sitting behind the scenes: the individual standing in front of your consumer unit now has to personally hold the qualification and evidenced experience, rather than working under someone else's.
In practice, that's a positive for anyone commissioning an EICR — it raises the baseline competence of the person actually doing the testing.
