Software guides, by what you're actually searching for
Buying compliance or estates software is hard to research: most vendors hide their pricing, and every product page says the same things.
These guides explain each category the way a buyer would ask about it: what the software must cover, the statutory duties behind it, what it should cost and the questions to ask before you sign.
The twelve guides
School compliance software Schools & trusts
What a school compliance system must cover (fire, gas, electrical, asbestos, water), the legal basis for each duty, and eight questions that separate systems that last from ones that become another spreadsheet.
Estates management software for schools Schools & trusts
The whole estate in one system (work orders, planned maintenance, contractors, assets and condition) and how the DfE's School Estate Management Standards, with annual returns from autumn 2026, change what buyers should look for.
Academy trust CAFM Multi-academy trusts
Running several schools' estates from one system: live trust rollups, per-school accountability, shared contractors, and why adding a school should be configuration rather than a procurement project.
Fire safety inspection software Fire safety
Fire door checks, weekly alarm tests, drills and the written FRA: the inspection regime behind school fire safety, and how software turns routine checks into evidence a fire officer will accept.
Building inspection app Inspections
Why clipboard inspections fail three times over (transcription, evidence, the dead end) and what a phone-first inspection app must do instead: photo per item, and every failure raised as a job automatically.
Planned maintenance software Maintenance
A calendar reminds; a schedule engine acts. PPM with statutory frequencies seeded, jobs raised before due dates, contractors chased automatically, and the schedule rolling itself forward on completion.
Health & safety software for schools Health & safety
The premises half of school H&S, honestly scoped: safety walks, hazard reporting by any member of staff, the statutory register and governor evidence, and a plain statement of what belongs elsewhere.
School maintenance management software Helpdesk & reactive
The life of a fault without the friction: staff report in under a minute, AI drafts the job from the email, caretakers and contractors get their own views, and every step is evidenced on one timeline.
Statutory compliance software All sectors
Fire, water, gas, electrical, asbestos and lifting duties on one register: organised by system rather than by folder, with frequencies, named ownership and evidence, whatever buildings you run.
Contractor management software Contractors
Compliant before the gate: insurance, DBS and accreditation expiry chased automatically, explicit approved status, magic-link job updates with no logins, and certificates that land on the record.
Board portal for academy trusts Governance
Packs that compile themselves, e-signed approvals, registers that build themselves, and the estate wired in, so board assurance comes from live data rather than last term's spreadsheet.
School facilities management software The whole picture
The category mapped: six jobs one system must carry (reactive, planned, compliance, inspections, contractors and governance), with the deep guide behind each and the questions that cut across all of them.
Twelve guides and counting. If you'd rather start from your own position, the free compliance assessment scores your gaps in three minutes and the calculators put numbers on the workload.