Plain answer
How long does Gateway 2 approval actually take now?
Short answer: for a new higher-risk building, the median wait for Gateway 2 building control approval is now 22 weeks, with 91% of decisions being approvals, according to the Building Safety Regulator's own data for May to July 2026. A year ago the median was 43 weeks and the approval rate 39%. Remediation, internal works and NHS applications have all moved the same way. So the honest answer for anyone planning a programme is: the queue is shorter than it was, but it is still measured in months, not weeks, and the firms that come through it well are the ones whose information is in order before, during and after the wait.
The data
The numbers, from the regulator's own data.
Gateway 2 is the approval a higher-risk building needs before construction can start, and for two years it was where programmes went to wait. The Building Safety Regulator now publishes its application data, and the May to July 2026 release shows a real turn:
| Application type | Median approval time | Approval rate |
|---|---|---|
| New higher-risk buildings | 22 weeks, down from 43 | 91%, up from 39% |
| External remediation | 34 weeks, down from 43 | 85%, up from 47% |
| Internal works | 32 weeks overall, 16 weeks for 2026 submissions | 77% |
| NHS applications | 24 weeks overall, 13 weeks for 2026 submissions | 84% |
The turn dates from August 2025, when the regulator set up a dedicated unit for new build applications. Twelve months on, approval times have halved and the approval rate for new builds has gone from four applications in ten to nine in ten. There were still 1,547 cases in progress at the end of July 2026, so this is a queue moving, not a queue gone.
The real signal
What the approval rate is really telling you.
The most useful number in that table is not the 22 weeks. It is the 39% that became 91%.
A 39% approval rate meant most applications were failing, and applications mostly fail on information: missing detail, inconsistency between documents, answers the regulator had to ask for twice. The rate recovering to 91% says the industry learned to submit complete, consistent information, and the regulator got faster at handling it. The wait was never only the regulator's queue. Part of it was always the quality of what went in.
That lesson lands directly on the supply chain. For a mechanical and electrical contractor, Gateway 2 means your design information, your fire-safety-relevant details and your product data are part of someone else's submission, and a question about them that takes your office a week to answer is a week on somebody's programme.
Programme planning
Planning a programme around a 22-week median.
A median is not a promise. Half of applications take longer. Plan the programme on the wait being months, and treat anything faster as a gift.
The wait is not idle time for the bid team. The enquiries, revisions and clarifications keep arriving while the application sits, and the firms that answer them from current documents, first time, are the ones that do not add their own weeks to the clock.
Change control is now part of the wait. The regulator's data release now tracks change requests and their processing times, which is a plain signal: changes after submission are measured, and they cost time. The faster and more accurately a question gets answered, the fewer changes end up as formal requests.
Where it fits
Where Ryku fits in this.
Ryku is not a planning consultant and does not speed up a regulator. What it does is carry the information side of the wait: it answers your firm's phone, email, chat and social from your own current documents and details, so the consultant chasing a detail at 6pm gets the answer from the current revision rather than a callback on Thursday, and your engineers stay on the design work instead of the phone. On a programme where approval takes months, the firm that answers quickly, consistently and from current documents is simply easier to work with, and easier to bring back.
Next steps
What to do this quarter.
If you feed information into higher-risk building submissions, ask the main contractor which of your documents sit inside the next Gateway 2 application, and when they were last checked against the current revision.
Put one current version of your standard answers, product data and details where every channel answers from it.
Track your own response time to technical queries for a month. That number is your contribution to everyone else's programme.
Frequently asked
The questions firms ask first.
How long does Gateway 2 take for a new building now?
A median of 22 weeks for new higher-risk buildings, on the regulator's May to July 2026 data, with 91% of decisions being approvals. A year earlier it was 43 weeks and 39%.
Why were so many applications failing before?
Applications mostly fail on incomplete or inconsistent information. The recovery in the approval rate came alongside a dedicated regulator unit and better-prepared submissions.
Does this affect subcontractors, or just developers?
It reaches the whole supply chain. Design details, product data and fire-safety information from specialist contractors sit inside the submission, and slow answers to queries add time no programme has spare.
What does Ryku AI actually do for a construction firm?
It answers the firm's phone, email, chat and social from your own current project documents and details, catches enquiries while the team is on site, and hands anything needing judgement to a person with the conversation attached.
What does it cost?
Plans from £499 a month, first month free.
Sources
The figures on this page.
Building Safety Regulator building control approval application data, May to July 2026. Building Safety Regulator, gov.uk, August 2026. Median approval times and approval rates for new higher-risk buildings, external remediation, internal works and NHS applications, and the count of cases in progress at the end of July 2026.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-safety-regulator-building-control-approval-application-data-may-to-july-2026/building-safety-regulator-building-control-approval-application-data-may-to-july-2026Start
Answer from the current revision, every time.
Ryku answers your firm's phone, email, chat and social from your own current documents and details, so the wait for approval never turns into a wait for answers. Build your firm's agent and hear it answer, before you commit to anything.
Enter your firm's website address and hear Ryku.Ai answer live, built on your own projects.