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The UKCA deadline you are thinking of is not a deadline

CE marking is accepted in Great Britain indefinitely. The date most people are worried about governs something else entirely.

SI 2024/696The reference page for this document

Ask a British importer of test equipment when they have to move to UKCA and a date usually comes back: the end of 2027. It is a real date in a real instrument. It has nothing to do with whether CE marking is accepted.

What actually happened

The Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment) Regulations 2024 came into force on 1 October 2024 and amended 22 pieces of legislation, including the Electromagnetic Compatibility Regulations 2016. The effect for the two regimes that govern a programmable power source is that Great Britain continues to recognise CE marking, alongside or in place of UKCA. There is no end date attached to that recognition.

So what is 31 December 2027?

A separate and much narrower concession about where the UKCA mark may be PLACED. Until that date it may be applied to a label affixed to the product, or to an accompanying document, rather than to the product itself. It is a marking-placement allowance for manufacturers who have chosen UKCA. It says nothing about CE.

Conflating the two produces a procurement conversation in which a supplier is asked to commit to a transition that is not required, on a deadline that governs something else.

The part almost nobody mentions

The same 2024 instrument also permits the UKCA marking to be applied where recognised EU requirements and conformity assessment have been met. UKCA and CE are now two routes to the same evidence base rather than two separate programmes of work.

What this changes for a test programme

  • If your supplier's equipment carries CE, that is sufficient for Great Britain today, with no expiry to plan around.
  • Northern Ireland is a different market and takes CE. Because EMC and Low Voltage conformity assessment is Module A — internal production control, no notified body — a manufacturer of this kind of equipment never triggers UKNI at all.
  • Great Britain publishes its own designated standards rather than using EU harmonised standards. Different list, different website, different update cycle. Check the list you are actually claiming against.

Sources