As reported on 23 September 2026, the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA) said it was progressing a new contract for its competence assessment service following a tender exercise. The IAA said the changes were designed to better support advisers and candidates, strengthen assurance of competence and improve the assessment experience.

Planned changes included questions based on revised syllabuses, an additional component covering the Code of Standards, ethics and professional behaviours, and a new assessment platform. The IAA also planned more frequent assessment opportunities and said it would replace the resource book with access to approved whitelisted websites during the assessment. Under the revised sequencing, candidates seeking to join an IAA-regulated organisation as advisers would need to pass the assessment before being added to that organisation's application, and individuals seeking to establish their own organisation would need to pass before applying for regulation.

The IAA said the online assessment was temporarily paused while the new arrangements were implemented. Subject to completion of the necessary arrangements and dependencies outside the IAA's control, assessments were anticipated to resume from November 2026. The IAA said details of assessment dates and timings for the application journey changes would be published when confirmed, and that it was holding webinars about the new process, with dates to be announced.