As of 2025, CE marking of structural timber will no longer be valid in the UK due to the UK's withdrawal from the EU. A new system, UKCA, is available since 1 January 2021. RISE, through its collaboration with The British Standards Institution, can help arrange UKCA certificates.
RISE has a long history of working with strength grading of structural timber in various ways, including testing, inspection, certification, education, research and other assignments. A large part of the work in the area consists of certification and control of sawmills and planing mills that need certification for their manufactured products. RISE works in this area with certification and testing of products for the European, US and Australian markets. Since 2008 it has been possible for manufacturers of strength graded structural timber to CE mark their products and since 2013 it has been mandatory to CE mark structural timber manufactured according to the product standard EN 14081.
With the CE marking, the manufacturer shows that their product complies with the requirements of EU legislation. CE marking is valid throughout the EU and EEA countries and manufacturers of CE marked products can therefore easily export their products within the EU and EEA countries as the same rules and requirements apply in all countries. As the UK is no longer part of the EU, the CE marking will no longer be valid in the UK. A new certification and labelling system called UKCA (UK Conformity Assessed) has therefore been developed by the UK. The new system has been possible to use since 2021-01-01. A transition period, where both labelling systems (CE and UKCA) are valid, was originally set to 2023-01-01. This transition period was then extended for all UKCA labelled products until 2025-06-30. After that date, only UKCA labelled products are valid in the UK. Since the transition period is still ongoing, it is currently possible to export structural timber to the UK with the usual CE marking, but manufacturers are encouraged to prepare in good time and certify themselves according to UKCA.
Same product standards
The UK has adopted our current common European standards as British standards (e.g. for structural timber EN 14081 which becomes BS 14081) which means that the same rules on the manufacturing process, self-monitoring and documentation will apply whether the product is intended for the UK or European market. This facilitates the transition to UKCA as manufacturers do not need to change their manufacturing process or grade structural timber with different grading rules.
Certificates and controls
In order to issue UKCA certificates, the certification body must have UK Approved Body status. UK Approved Body is the equivalent of Notified Body in the CE marking system. At present, only British companies can obtain UK Approved Body status, which means that RISE cannot obtain UK Approved Body status and therefore cannot issue certificates for UKCA. Instead, since 2021, RISE has collaborated with BSI (The British Standards Institution), which has the status of UK Approved Body and can therefore make decisions on certification and issue certificates for UKCA. RISE works as a subcontractor for BSI and they can then issue certificates based on our reports from initial and follow-up inspection and any test reports. After certificates are issued, RISE carries out the control visits to the manufacturers in the usual way and communicates the report and any deviations with BSI, which then decides whether the conditions exist for continued certification.
Certified manufacturers
RISE currently has over 100 manufacturers who are certified for sorting structural timber according to EN 14081 for CE marking. Of these, about 50 manufacturers have a UKCA certificate issued by BSI. The Swedish sawmill industry is therefore well equipped for the day when the CE marking eventually ceases to be valid in the UK.
Other products
Within the framework of RISE and BSI's cooperation, products other than structural timber can also be certified for UKCA, both in the wood sector and in other areas. Examples of other products in the wood sector that can be certified for UKCA are glulam, finger-jointed structural timber, roof trusses and wood-based panels.
Furter reading
Strength graded structural timber
This is an article from our magazine Trävärden, view it here! (Link)
