Aareon UK and Simpro Group partner to connect contractors with housing and property platforms

Software partnerships rarely make headlines among electricians, but this one deserves attention from anyone who works, or hopes to work, on housing maintenance and compliance contracts. Aareon supplies management systems to housing associations, local authority landlords and property managers, while Simpro is a job management platform already used by many electrical and building services contractors. Linking the two points to a future where the landlord's system and the contractor's system share information directly: job requests flowing out, and completed work, test results and certificates flowing back. For electricians, that means the paperwork they produce on site is likely to feed straight into a landlord's compliance records, where it may be checked, flagged and audited far more systematically than a PDF sitting in an inbox. This matters because electrical safety in rented housing is under increasing scrutiny. Private landlords in England have been required since 2020 to obtain an Electrical Installation Condition Report at least every five years, and the government has committed to bringing comparable requirements into the social housing sector. Large housing providers manage tens of thousands of properties, so demand for periodic inspection, remedial work and accurate certification is steady and substantial. When reports are captured digitally and tracked against asset records, inconsistencies stand out quickly: an observation coded C2 without a clear explanation, missing test values, or a limitation that hasn't been properly recorded. Electricians who understand inspection and testing thoroughly, and who can apply the classification codes correctly and justify their judgements under BS 7671, will be better placed to win and keep this kind of work. For trainees and newly qualified electricians, the broader lesson is that technical competence and good record-keeping are becoming inseparable. A solid grounding in the current Wiring Regulations underpins everything, and a recognised inspection and testing qualification such as the City & Guilds 2391 is often expected by contractors on housing compliance frameworks. Getting comfortable with digital job management and certification tools during an apprenticeship or NVQ is also worthwhile, since much of the evidence of competence and quality that clients rely on is now generated through these systems. Software won't do the testing for you, but it will make the quality of your work more visible to the people who commission it.