UK Living Series: Later Living Conference

Why you Can't Miss This Event

In 2025 alone, more than £10 billion changed hands in a sector that, just a few years ago, was still making the case for institutional legitimacy. US REITs deployed billions into Barchester, HC-One, and Care REIT. Audley and Elysian merged to create the UK's largest retirement village group. Investors signalled plans to deploy £45 billion across living sectors by 2029, with nearly 40% targeting seniors rental. The conversation has moved — from whether to invest, to how, how fast, and at what scale.

And yet the fundamentals that are drawing all this capital tell a more complex story. The UK needs 50,000 new later living homes every year. It is building fewer than 8,000. More than 100,000 care roles sit vacant. Planning reform is moving, but not fast enough, and not always in the right direction for this sector. Operators are absorbing rising labour costs, new ownership structures, and a consumer who is more demanding — and more discerning — than ever before.

This is a sector at its most exciting and its most demanding moment simultaneously. The investors are here. The demographic case has never been stronger. The execution challenge has never been greater.

What You'll Learn: 

• As US REITs consolidate ownership of thousands of UK care home beds, what does the new institutional landlord model mean for domestic investors, operators, and the competitive landscape — and is the CMA's scrutiny a speed bump or a structural constraint?
• With investors planning to deploy £45bn across living sectors by 2029 and nearly 40% targeting seniors rental, how is the shift from for-sale to rental product reshaping underwriting assumptions, development economics, and the investor return profile?
• With over 100,000 care roles unfilled, visa rules tightened, and the National Living Wage rising again in April 2026, where are operators finding headroom in their cost base — and what role can AI, technology, and smarter workforce design realistically play in the near term?
• As REIT ownership becomes the norm rather than the exception, how is the relationship between landlord and operator evolving — and what does a high-performance operating partnership actually look like when institutional expectations meet the realities of daily care delivery?
• The revised NPPF explicitly names retirement housing, housing-with-care, and care homes as important typologies — but critics argue the brownfield-first agenda and absence of mandatory local authority targets will keep delivery well below need. Is planning reform helping or hindering, and what should the sector be demanding next?
• With rental product converting visitors at twice the rate of for-sale, and investors increasingly targeting seniors rental over ownership models, how should developers be rethinking tenure mix, scheme design, and the resident journey to match where consumer demand and capital appetite are actually heading?

Who attends: Senior executives from across the UK Later Living ecosystem — institutional investors, REITs, fund managers, developers, operators, housing associations, advisors, and planning professionals — convening at a moment when the decisions made in this sector will shape how a generation of older people live.

Why now: The deals have been done. The capital has committed. The demographic clock is running. The question is no longer whether UK Later Living has arrived as an asset class — it is who will build it, who will run it, and who will profit from getting it right.

This is the room where those conversations happen.

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For questions, recommendations, comments, or press inquiries please email our VP of Production, Elizabeth Baker, at liz.baker@bisnow.com

To request disability-related accommodations, please contact lucrezia.manzo@bisnow.com no later than seven business days before the event.

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