Kunle Barker

Why organisations work with Kunle Barker

• He runs a construction firm. Illustrious Homes has delivered thousands of residential refurbishments, school refits, and sports-centre projects since 2004, so his views on retrofit and net zero are grounded in what is actually buildable.
• He sits inside the policy conversation. He has advised the House of Lords and the Church of England on housing strategy and is the lead masterplan consultant on the Brent Cross Town regeneration scheme.
• He is a recognised voice on UK net zero in the built environment. He was the first Unlock Net Zero Ambassador and a CIOB Client Champion, with a regular column in the Architects’ Journal and frequent commentary on Sky News and Times Radio.
• He works comfortably at the front of a stage. Presenter and curator credits at Grand Designs Live with Kevin McCloud, plus Channel 4 and ITV property shows, mean he can host, moderate, and translate technical content for non-technical audiences.

Biography highlights

• Founder of Illustrious Homes (2004), a construction and design management firm specialising in residential refurbishment, education and sports facility projects.
• Lead Masterplan Consultant on Brent Cross Town, the multi-billion-pound regeneration scheme led by Related Argent.
• 2022 inaugural Unlock Net Zero Ambassador; 2023 Unlock Net Zero Ambassador for Inside Housing.
• CIOB Client Champion for the Chartered Institute of Building.
• Broadcasting credits include ITV’s “Save Money: My Beautiful Green Home” and “Love Your Home & Garden” with Alan Titchmarsh, “Renovate Don’t Relocate” with Sarah Beeny, “Project Home” (Channel 4, 2023) with Nick Grimshaw, and presenter/curator at Grand Designs Live with Kevin McCloud.
• Regular columnist for the Architects’ Journal and Grand Designs Magazine; property commentator for Sky News and Times Radio.

Biography

UK housing accounts for roughly a fifth of national carbon emissions, and the country has more than 28 million existing homes. The retrofit problem is not abstract; it is a question of which walls, which boilers, which planning rules, and which budgets, on which streets. Kunle Barker has spent two decades inside that problem.

He founded Illustrious Homes in 2004 and has since delivered thousands of residential refurbishments alongside school and sports-centre projects. That operating base gives his commentary on net zero, retrofit, and sustainable construction something most built-environment speakers lack: a working site to test the argument against.

The advisory work followed. He has briefed the House of Lords and the Church of England on housing policy, sits on a round table on UK future housing strategy, and is the lead masterplan consultant on Brent Cross Town, the Related Argent regeneration scheme. He is the inaugural Unlock Net Zero Ambassador and a CIOB Client Champion, and writes regularly for the Architects’ Journal and Grand Designs Magazine.

The broadcasting work is where most audiences first meet him. He has co-presented with Alan Titchmarsh and Sarah Beeny on ITV, fronted “Project Home” on Channel 4 with Nick Grimshaw, and presents at Grand Designs Live alongside Kevin McCloud. The reason that matters here, beyond profile, is that he can take a board-level argument about decarbonising housing stock and make it land with a non-specialist room without losing the technical substance.

Key speaking topics

• Sustainable building and retrofit
• Net zero in the built environment
• UK housing policy and the housing crisis
• Urban regeneration and placemaking
• Future of housing and home design
• Construction industry transformation

Ideal for

• Property, construction, and real-estate boards setting retrofit and net zero strategy
• Housing associations, developers, and local authority leadership teams working on regeneration or decarbonisation programmes
• ESG, sustainability, and building-products organisations needing a credible external voice on UK housing
• Conference and awards organisers who need a host or moderator who can carry technical built-environment content

Audience outcomes

• A clearer sense of where UK net zero ambition collides with the reality of building, retrofitting, and financing housing.
• A practitioner’s view of which sustainable building practices actually scale on real projects and which stall.
• Familiarity with the policy and regeneration conversations shaping the next decade of UK housing.
• A confident framing of how organisations in property, construction, and adjacent sectors should talk about climate action with customers, residents, and regulators.