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To mark the launch of the CSCS Group Annual Review 2025, Chief Executive Sean Kearns recaps the year just gone and looks ahead to 2026
CSCS has undergone a major digital transformation in recent years – evolving from being just a card scheme with static checking and visual compliance into a digital-first industry platform for trusted, real-time workforce competence.
This shift aligns with the sector’s move toward stronger regulation and continuous professional development, placing verified skills, training and experience at the heart of day-to-day delivery. It also aligns with industry desire, via Mark Farmer’s Industry Training Board review, for a digital skills passport within construction.
My CSCS is the Digital Skills Passport for CSCS cardholders. Relaunched this year, the app brings together a digital CSCS card as well as verified qualifications, health and safety records, occupation-specific training and ongoing development in one secure record. It travels with each worker across projects and roles, and integrates with site access and supply-chain systems to cut admin and speed up onboarding.
Alongside this, CSCS Smart Check, as the industry’s border control system, provides instant, on-site verification of all CSCS-logoed cards, physical or digital, and will soon verify additional elements of the passport once competence thresholds are defined by industry.
Together, My CSCS and Smart Check give clients and dutyholders clear evidence of a fully trained and qualified workforce, laying the foundations for a more connected, data-driven, resilient industry over the coming years.
Download the CSCS Group Annual Review 2025
My CSCS is, and has always been, the skills passport that industry asked for. In 2026 we’ll continue its roll-out with additional features and deepen its alignment with the Building Safety Act.
Competence isn’t a point-in-time snapshot but a living record – evidencing Skills, Knowledge, Experience and Behaviours (SKEB) as people progress. That means clearer guidance for employers, smoother onboarding for workers, and stronger assurance for clients and dutyholders.
CSCS Smart Check remains the border control system industry should use, as per Construction Leadership Council guidelines, and we’ll continue to work with industry regarding future developments and what we, as a collective, want from it. If you’re not using Smart Check, please do get in touch with a member of the team and we can work with you to ensure you’re on board.
As more and more sign up to Smart Check, that ensuing data combined with Alliance insights, will lead to richer, more useful analytics, helping inform practical actions on training capacity, qualification gaps and regional demand. Throughout, we’ll keep privacy and security at the core, ensuring industry can trust not only the value of the system but its integrity as well. CSCS is no longer about what’s on the card – it’s what in the card and whether or not it can be verified.
Only by following this ethos can we get faster, safer starts on site; clearer competence evidence for regulated roles and better targeting of training. With your help, 2026 will be the year the Digital Skills Passport infrastructure becomes business as usual for UK construction and we will all begin to reap the rewards of a more connected industry network.
