Publication

UK & European Self Storage Spotlight, Q4 2025

Article

Contacts & Related Research

Technology, scale and institutionalisation redefining the sector’s future

Contents


Key points
  • Self Storage markets across the UK and Europe continue to benefit from a combination of structural undersupply, growing demand, and the reallocation of capital into operational real estate. The sector has evolved from a fragmented, entrepreneurial landscape into a recognisable institutional asset class, supported by scaled platforms, cross-border expansion, and portfolio liquidity.
  • In 2023, there were 6,076 Self Storage facilities across the UK and Europe, up from 1,716 in 2012, a c.250% increase over the past decade. Despite this rapid expansion, Europe still averages only 0.3 sq ft of storage space per capita, compared with 0.94 sq ft in the UK and around 7 sq ft in the US, underscoring the substantial scope for further expansion.
  • The sector’s traditional demand drivers have been bolstered by new structural drivers, including hybrid working, elevated housing costs, urbanisation, smaller dwelling sizes, and SME/e-commerce storage needs. The Self Storage sector has proven its resilience through changing macro conditions, supporting stable occupancy and continued rental growth even as wider economic performance weakened.
  • The more mature US market provides a clear view of the sector’s long-term capacity in the UK and Europe. In the US, around 290 million sq ft of new storage, equivalent to 14% of total inventory, was delivered over the past five years, following a Covid-era boom that temporarily pushed occupancy above 90%. Despite subsequent oversupply, stabilised occupancy levels above 85% demonstrate how mature markets can continue to absorb capacity, reinforcing the depth of potential in the undersupplied UK and European markets.
  • In the UK & Europe, between 2020 and 2024, the sector recorded year-on-year (YoY) increases in deal volumes, reaching a record €1.2 billion in 2024. Activity was fuelled by strong pandemic-era operating performance, and capital reallocation away from traditional commercial real estate sectors into Self Storage. As the market has scaled, capital is increasingly being sourced from institutional investors.
  • The market has now reached sufficient size to facilitate significant capital deployment, with €100–€200 million portfolios increasingly common and eight platforms now valued above €1 billion across the UK and Europe. This provides the scale required for larger institutional allocations and supports continued cross-border consolidation and platform expansion.
  • While investment volumes have dropped in 2025, Self Storage continues to deliver defensive, inflation-linked income. Larger operators are leveraging technology, digital sales channels and economies of scale to sustain margins, while investors view current pricing dislocation and net asset value (NAV) discounts as a window for selective entry.
  • Over the next decade, Savills Self Storage expects further market consolidation, with multiple “mega platforms” exceeding 500 facilities anticipated to emerge across the UK and continental Europe. Growing scale will enable greater operational efficiency, lower cost of capital, and enhanced brand visibility, while Europe’s significant runway for expansion relative to the US will continue to attract investors and underpin sustained growth across the sector.

Introduction

Investor appetite for diversification has grown steadily since the global financial crisis, with capital increasingly targeting operational real estate sectors and cross-border strategies becoming mainstream.

In the UK and Europe, having already been a well-established asset class in the US for some time now, Self Storage has grown to be an investable asset class, gaining traction as awareness has increased.

The pandemic further accelerated demand, driving record investment volumes in 2022–2024. Since then, higher interest rates and macroeconomic uncertainty have slowed momentum, while recent sales processes have highlighted the challenges of aligning buyer and seller pricing expectations in a higher-cost environment, and reinforced the importance of transparent, granular data to ensure investor conviction and support competitive bidding.

Addressing these challenges, Savills has developed its own proprietary Self Storage database that integrates detailed supply mapping with demographic, economic and housing market indicators to provide a consistent view of local demand and market balance across the sector.

As the sector navigates this period, which is proving challenging for all real estate asset classes, it nevertheless remains an under-supplied, inflation-linked asset with growing customer awareness and heightened investor interest.

Additionally, the sector is now seeing the emergence of several scaled platforms, reaching the scale needed to support further expansion through institutional investment.

Over the next decade, the number of large-scale operators is expected to increase significantly as the market continues to mature. It is highly likely that we will see the emergence of multiple “mega portfolios” consisting of over 500 facilities, with the sector ripe for consolidation.

In the UK, weak GDP growth and a sluggish housing market through 2024 have contributed to the overall softer performance in 2025 to date among listed operators. Although, regional variation in supply and demand imbalances across the UK means there has still been strong growth in some areas.

By contrast, in the less mature Self Storage markets of continental Europe, performance has generally been stronger than in the UK, even in countries where GDP growth and housing market activity have been subdued, underscoring the depth of unmet demand across the continent and highlighting the potential value of geographical diversification within the sector.

Certain pandemic-related demand drivers have also softened, with the return to office working. However, flexible working practices, including hybrid and home working, remain embedded, ensuring that part of the pandemic-era uplift in Self Storage demand has been sustained.

As the sector adjusts to an environment where both operational and capital costs remain elevated, the key question is how operators and investors can continue to deliver attractive returns. Increasingly, this will depend on scale and efficiency. Operators are reducing headcount in-store to reduce costs and improve margins.

Larger platforms are gaining revenue advantages through stronger brand recognition, enhanced pricing power, and greater marketing and operational efficiency. Additionally, with scale comes a lower cost of capital, allowing large operators to expand quickly.

The UK and European markets remain highly fragmented, and institutional capital is playing a growing role in consolidating portfolios and expanding capacity to meet undersupplied demand.

Success will depend on tightening operations and improving asset performance, with a focus on data-driven asset selection targeting local supply–demand imbalances, alongside technology integration and cost optimisation to sustain margins as competition intensifies.

Self Storage Capital Markets

Over the past decade, investors have increasingly diversified their holdings across real estate, expanding both their sectoral and geographic exposure to minimise risk and maximise returns. This shift has driven the rise of pan-European strategies and a notable increase in allocations to emerging sectors such as Self Storage and Healthcare—markets once dominated by specialist operators but now attracting capital from a much broader investor base.

In Self Storage, the growing professionalisation and scaling of platforms has facilitated capital deployment, with investment volumes growing and sources becoming increasingly institutional.

Investors can gain exposure to the Self Storage sector through both public and private markets. On the public side, the largest operators, such as Big Yellow, Safestore and Shurgard, are listed on stock exchanges, providing liquid access to the sector.

However, public valuations can be volatile and are more strongly influenced by broader market sentiment and earnings-per-share (EPS) performance than by long-term asset value. Recently, listed operators have traded at notable discounts to NAV, though share prices have risen sharply following the announcement of the proposed Big Yellow acquisition, highlighting how sentiment can shift rapidly.

In the private market, capital is deployed through direct acquisitions by institutional investors, as well as by smaller-scale private investors assembling or expanding their own operating platforms. These routes offer exposure to the same fundamentals: rising demand, constrained supply and strong cash generation, without the short-term volatility (but less liquidity) associated with public markets.

Notably, while the share prices of publicly listed operators fell sharply from late 2021 onwards, transactional activity across the Self Storage sector remained robust up to 2024–2025.

This includes continued capital deployment by both listed platforms and private investors through direct asset acquisitions and development of new sites.

The Covid pandemic severely disrupted traditional commercial real estate sectors such as Offices and Retail, reshaping patterns of living and working and placing demand under sustained pressure. In response, investors sought alternative avenues for capital deployment.

Self Storage, which was already gaining traction in the decade prior, saw demand accelerate as households reconfigured their living arrangements, businesses downsized their physical footprints, and consumers turned to more flexible space solutions.

This robust occupier demand was sustained throughout 2020–2023, underpinning consistent sector growth. During the earlier phase of the cycle, extremely low interest rates further supported transactional activity, with the Bank of England (BoE) holding its base rate at a historic low of 0.10% from March 2020 to December 2021 and the European Central Bank (ECB) keeping its deposit facility rate at -0.50% until mid-2022.

Cheap debt in this window enabled significant capital allocation into operational real estate, helping to drive record investment volumes YoY in Self Storage through the early 2020s.

As interest rates rose in 2022, financing conditions tightened and the cost of capital grew, but the continued strong performance of operators sustained ongoing growth in transactional volumes through to 2024, which saw record capital deployment in the UK and Europe of €1.2 billion.

Interest rates rose to their highest levels in over a decade in 2023, creating a more challenging environment for capital markets and real estate investment.

Higher borrowing costs, rising operating expenses due to inflation, and more attractive yields from fixed-income asset classes weighed on activity across the real estate markets.

Public markets reacted negatively, with the prices of UK and European REITs across all sectors falling sharply, and Self Storage not being immune to this correction.

Even as broader real estate investment slowed and listed Self Storage providers saw their market prices fall, Self Storage continued to sustain strong transactional activity, underpinned by resilient cash flows, a counter-cyclical demand profile, and its evolution into institutional-scale platforms that were capable of absorbing large allocations.

In the mature US market, performance is increasingly shaped by cyclical economic swings, but in Europe, the sector remains less exposed to macroeconomic volatility. Structural undersupply, rising consumer awareness, and the relative immaturity of most European markets continue to drive expansion.

The UK, by contrast, is more advanced in its growth cycle and faces greater competitive pressures, making it comparatively less insulated from broader market conditions.

Investment momentum has moderated as elevated macro uncertainty tempers risk appetite. Tariff visibility, weaker housing markets across the UK and Europe, and recent UK tax changes are key headwinds, softening sentiment and curbing capital deployment.

During the pandemic and its aftermath, liquidity dried up in many core real estate sectors, particularly Offices and Retail, leaving investors unable to dispose of underperforming assets as transaction markets stalled.

As conditions stabilise and activity resumes, these holdings are gradually becoming realisable.

This release of trapped capital is likely to support further reallocation into growth segments, with sectors such as Self Storage well-placed to capture a greater share of investors’ strategies going forward.

Accurately Mapping the Self Storage Market

The withdrawn sales process for Access Self Storage in early 2025, one of the UK’s largest platforms, underscored the sector’s still-developing institutional profile, the influence of wider macroeconomic conditions, and the ongoing need for more transparent and reliable data.

The challenge is evident in sector reporting: FEDESSA, for example, recorded a c.40% increase in store count between reports released in 2023 and 2024, that primarily reflects broader inclusion criteria, illustrating the lack of consistent market data, giving an unclear picture of supply over time.

Our audited Savills database identifies 3,873 Self Storage and Container facilities in England, Wales and Scotland combined, while SSA UK reports 2,915 facilities in the whole of the UK, further highlighting the inconsistency of industry reporting.

Savills has created a UK and European database of Self Storage stores to provide its clients with accurate, granular supply side data overlayed with demand drivers to provide comprehensive diligence when assessing both single asset, portfolio and market entry opportunities.

Transactional Activity

Self Storage recorded decade-high transactional volumes between 2022 and 2024, reflecting both strong underlying demand fundamentals and the sector’s increasing maturity as an investment product.

The market itself has also reached a critical mass of scale: where £100–200 million portfolios were rare five years ago, they are now increasingly common, allowing investors to deploy meaningful capital in a single transaction and accelerating the sector’s institutionalisation. There are now eight portfolios valued at over €1 billion across the UK and Europe, illustrating how the sector has evolved from a fragmented landscape of small-scale owners into one capable of attracting large institutional mandates and cross-border investment.

Competition for quality assets remains intense. Planning constraints and structurally low levels of new supply mean that facilities brought to market are highly sought after, with pricing reflecting the scarcity of stock.

Transaction dynamics are further supported by the sector’s favourable operating model: Self Storage assets typically benefit from lower running costs relative to other Operational/Living sectors, with scope for further margin gains through digitalisation, online reservations, and sustainability initiatives such as photovoltaic panels and EV charging.

These features enhance EBITDA and reinforce the sector’s appeal in a competitive capital markets environment with heightened cost sensitivity. This can be taken further through cost synergies as greater scale is achieved.

Over the past 24 months, the Self Storage sector has seen a series of sizeable transactions involving a diverse mix of investors, including real estate managers, private equity, and operators.

Notable deals include Shurgard’s public buyout of Lok’nStore in March 2024; the sale of EasyBox in Italy by TPG Angelo Gordon to a joint venture (JV) between Safestore and Nuveen Real Estate in December 2024; and Sweden’s Servistore in early 2025, where Heitman acquired a majority stake.

Ardian also acquired the Atout-Box portfolio in France in mid-2024, while Shurgard completed several large acquisitions in Germany across 2023–2024.

At the same time, a number of high-profile deals have failed to progress, including the c.£1.1 billion sale of Access Self Storage and several other small-to-mid-sized portfolios.

Listed Operators are Trading at a Discount to NAV

UK Self Storage operators typically traded at a premium to NAV prior to Covid, supported by the strong growth of the sector, and at even higher premiums to NAV following Covid, supported by record occupancy and rent growth during the pandemic. But the environment has shifted since 2022 peaks, with inflationary cost pressures and rising staff and tax expenses.

Sizeable development pipelines, which for some providers were equivalent to nearly a fifth of MLA, became more expensive to finance as interest rates rose. Share prices now imply assets worth materially less than book value, reflecting both higher operational and capital costs and a reassessment of future returns and revenue generation of assets.

Given this, some investors have withdrawn, leading to the repricing of listed providers, and all the UK and European listed providers are now trading at significant discounts to NAV.

Furthermore, across Europe, benchmark government bond yields, German Bunds, French OATs, Italian BTPs and UK gilts, together with investment-grade corporate bonds, continue to offer attractive, highly liquid income.

For multi-asset investors, these instruments provide a straightforward, low-execution-risk alternative to property and therefore lift the required return hurdle for new real-estate acquisitions.

The result is a narrower property–bond yield spread than in the pre-2022 period; put simply, investors are being paid less additional yield for holding relatively illiquid real estate versus readily tradable sovereigns or high-quality credit.

Unless rental growth and operational improvements are sufficient to offset reduced occupancy, or interest rates continue to fall at a meaningful rate, the listed Self Storage names are likely to continue trading at material discounts to NAV.

Against this backdrop, this discount to NAV has begun to attract the attention of private capital. Big Yellow, which operates a 109-store UK portfolio valued at more than £2.7 billion and has a market capitalisation of around £1.9 billion, has appointed Goldman Sachs to engage a small group of potential buyers, reportedly including CPP, Starwood and Blackstone.

The company has been trading at a persistent discount to its NAV, at around 15% in October 2025, despite the c.20% uplift in share price seen following the recent buy-out announcement. For investors, this signals a potential inflection point.

Depressed share prices among listed operators are creating entry opportunities for well-capitalised investors seeking exposure to high-quality operational platforms at discounts to asset valuations.

The approach from large institutional buyers underscores the continued appeal of the sector’s fundamentals even as short-term market repricing continues. Therefore, while public valuations have adjusted to subdued performance, and higher costs and interest rates, private capital may increasingly view current conditions as a window for consolidation and selective entry.

Self Storage is a long-term value-creation play, and the market is still in the early stages of institutional-scale growth. Investors need to look beyond the typical five-year investment horizon and adopt a longer-term perspective.

Significant potential remains to unlock scale advantages and operational efficiencies as the sector matures.

Debt Markets

The UK debt market remains notably borrower-friendly, with lenders competing aggressively on pricing and structure to secure mandates. This competitive dynamic is driving tighter margins, higher LTVs, and increasingly flexible covenant packages.

Allocations to commercial real estate debt continue to rise, further strengthening liquidity conditions. Incumbent lenders are also showing strong appetite to retain existing clients, often offering extensions or enhanced flexibility to avoid competing for new business in the wider market.

Within Self Storage, both institutional lenders and debt funds remain drawn to the sector’s resilient cash flows, granular income profile, and diversified customer base.

These characteristics reduce concentration risk and position the asset class as comparatively stable versus other operational real estate sectors.

Consequently, more mature portfolios operated by established platforms continue to attract significant interest from international banks and institutional capital.

Development financing remains more selective. Ground-up projects led by less established sponsors, or involving assets that lack clear ESG alignment, are likely to face tighter scrutiny. Lenders are prioritising developments in demonstrably undersupplied markets and backing more tech-led operators with strong operational track records.

Nevertheless, specialist credit funds and alternative capital providers remain highly active across the sector. They are willing to support portfolios at various stages of stabilisation and lease-up, and are comfortable structuring facilities that provide an equity release to the borrower.

This allows sponsors to recycle capital into new site acquisitions and provides growth-focused platforms with the funding capacity needed to scale efficiently.

Growth & Development

Following the announcement of President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs on 2 April 2025, Self Storage was one of the most negatively impacted real estate sectors in Europe in terms of asset pricing among major REITs.

The tariffs prompted a downgrade on 2025–26 euro area GDP growth forecasts, creating uncertainty for investors regarding consumer confidence and spending, as well as the potential impact on the sector’s near-term performance. Looking ahead, the European trade deal with the US announced in July, combined with continued interest rate stabilisation, should help underpin a recovery in transaction volumes and asset prices.

Recent development activity has been constrained by prolonged planning delays and high construction costs in most markets, but we are beginning to see new build viability improve as construction cost inflation cools and land availability improves.

Despite recent difficulty, development pipelines across Europe remain active, with most new projects concentrated in and around urban cores. We are seeing strong development pipelines in large Self Storage markets such as the UK and Germany, and also increasingly in smaller, less mature markets such as Poland, Denmark and Norway, as investor and operator interest grows in emerging markets.

Operators are seeking geographical diversification as the UK market experiences reduced momentum as a result of tightening economic conditions and subdued housing transactions.

With emerging markets becoming increasingly attractive due to increasing urbanisation, low competition and greater supply-demand imbalance.

Leasing activity has picked up in 2025, particularly for well-located assets that are fit for purpose and supported by experienced management teams. Additionally, we are seeing strong performances from newly opened stores.

We are seeing bid-ask spreads narrowing as there is a greater alignment of asset prices between buyers and sellers. Combined with a greater range of investors now looking at the sector as they look to diversify across both sectors and countries, which should also support continued transaction activity in the sector.

Prime Self Storage yields have compressed to around 5.0%, reflecting sustained institutional demand for high-quality, well-located assets. Secondary yields remain at 6% or above, reflecting a relative softness in that market, particularly in the UK.

Before the pandemic, prime yields typically were above 5.5% but have gradually tightened as portfolios have scaled, new higher-quality facilities have been developed, and institutional capital has become increasingly active in the sector.

Operating Models & Ownership Structures

The UK and European Self Storage market continues to transition from a predominantly owner-operated structure to a more professionally managed, investor-backed asset class. While leading operators continue to align real estate ownership closely with operations, many have sparingly used hybrid models in recent years to support expansion and enhance brand visibility.

The UK & European Self Storage sector remains dominated by the fully owner-operated freehold model, which accounts for 70–80% of facilities. Major public operators, such as Big Yellow, Safestore, Shurgard, Bluespace and MyPlace, favour this approach for the control, value appreciation, and yield compression it offers. Big Yellow, for example, owns most of its UK stores outright, while Safestore owns the majority of its 200+ sites across the UK and its European markets.

However, there are alternative models and structures that have started to gain ground. Leaseholds, commonly used for urban conversions or sale-leasebacks, represent around 20–25% of sites. Prior to its acquisition by Shurgard in 2024, Lok’nStore actively pursued a capital recycling strategy, selling select freeholds to institutional investors while retaining operational control.

JVs have become a prominent structure to facilitate expansion, particularly in new markets. A notable example is Safestore’s 2019 JV with Carlyle Group, through which it acquired and operated a 15-store portfolio in Belgium and the Netherlands, initially holding a 20% equity stake before fully acquiring the portfolio in 2022.

Likewise, in 2020, Moorfield Group partnered with REIT Stor-Age (Storage King) in a £100 million UK JV where Stor-Age co-invested ~25% and manages the assets. Big Yellow had used similar models, including for its ‘Armadillo’ JV, which it later consolidated into its core business. These partnerships allow capital-efficient market entry while aligning operational and investment expertise.

Franchising remains limited but is gaining ground in select markets. Homebox utilises this model in France, operating over 60 franchised stores out of its 145-location network. Franchisees typically own the real estate and operate under the Homebox brand. While less common elsewhere, franchising offers asset-light expansion for brands and access for entrepreneurial investors.

Third-party management contracts, though still only representing a single-digit share of the market, are emerging as a viable route for institutional owners. Flexiss Group now manages stores across the UK with a variety of investors, including L&G, Schroders, and Barwood. Storage King also manages several assets on behalf of Hines and other investors.

While freehold owner-operation remains the dominant model, the past five years have seen a growing use of JVs, sale-and-leasebacks, franchises, and management contracts.

This shift reflects the sector’s growing institutionalisation and the diversification of capital and operating structures to support expansion. Ongoing interest from institutional investors is expected to sustain this trend.

For operators, these models are often a means to accelerate growth, with many later reacquiring the underlying real estate once assets mature to secure both operational income and long-term capital appreciation.

Delivering Returns in a Changing Environment

Over the past decade, the market has passed through three phases: steady pre-Covid growth; the pandemic and an immediate post-Covid surge; and a subsequent softening in some markets, or a return to more normalised levels in others.

Although the cost of debt has eased over the past year, it remains well above pre-Covid and 2020–22 levels, keeping funding expensive and limiting development viability.

Construction inflation has eased, and rising wages and operating costs have seemed to reach their peak, with efficiencies being introduced to reduce costs. However, the possibility of property tax increases in the UK, pending the Autumn Budget, remains a concern.

In the UK, the BoE’s policy rate was lowered to 4.0% in August 2025, down from the 5.25% peak in August 2023 after successive cuts since August 2024.

While earlier consensus pointed to a path of successive cuts, recent developments have dampened expectations: most forecasts now suggest no further cuts in 2025, with potential easing pushed into early 2026.

In Europe, the ECB cut its key rates by 25 basis points in June 2025, bringing the deposit, main refinancing, and marginal lending rates down to 2.00%, 2.15%, and 2.40%, respectively. With inflation close to target and growth modest, the ECB is expected to pause further cuts through the autumn, with only a modest possibility of easing later in the year.

Given this backdrop, development viability and growth momentum will remain acutely sensitive not just to the timing but also to the magnitude and frequency of any further easing. In the UK, markets now anticipate that the next phase of rate cuts is unlikely to begin until 2026.

With margins under pressure and development viability constrained, operators are prioritising operational efficiency by digitising processes, reducing FTEs, and redesigning facilities.

Adoption of micro-urban formats and hub-and-satellite clusters is increasing as firms trial technology-enabled models to serve localised catchments more efficiently. Later in the report, we detail how these strategies aim to sustain returns and growth in a tougher market cycle.

Supply & Demand

Sizing the market

In 2023, there were 6,076 Self Storage facilities across the UK and Europe, the last year of consistent data reported by FEDESSA, up from just 1,716 in 2012, a c.250% increase. Between 2012 and 2019, the number of facilities expanded at an average annual rate of around 14%, although reflecting growth from a low base. From 2019 to 2023, growth remained strong at approximately 9% per year, from a much larger base of 4,290 facilities. Among the major markets, Spain and Germany recorded the strongest growth over the 2012–2023 period, while the Netherlands, the UK and France saw more modest expansion. Notably, both the UK and the Netherlands were starting from significantly higher penetration levels.

Market Fundamentals & Customer Demand

Supply

Relative to the US, the UK and Europe remain materially undersupplied in Self Storage capacity. As of 2024, Europe has around 0.3 sq ft per person, compared with more than 7 sq ft in the US.

Despite the strong growth in facilities over recent years, the retained substantial gap in provision indicates a significant runway for further expansion. For operators, this means there is both the opportunity to consolidate existing assets and to develop new facilities to address the persistent undersupply across the market.

The UK, the most mature European market, stands at about 0.94 sq ft per person. Continental European markets are far less penetrated: The Netherlands 0.73, Spain 0.43, France 0.41, Germany 0.27, and Italy 0.03 sq ft per person.

Notably, the Savills Self Storage database highlights substantial regional variation in MLA per capita for Self Storage facilities (excluding container and hybrid sites): England has 0.82 sq ft per person, compared with 0.51 in Scotland and 0.39 in Wales.

Demand

Rising housing costs, constrained affordability of both commercial and living spaces and the expansion of e-commerce were already supporting Self Storage demand—the pandemic then forced a sharp shift in consumer behaviour. Self Storage established itself as a practical, cost-effective alternative, allowing households to avoid the expense of moving to larger properties while retaining flexible, short-notice agreements.

As smaller, urban homes become more common, demand is set to grow even further, both from residents and from businesses serving these communities.

Some pandemic-related demand has moderated as behaviours normalised, but lasting changes, most notably hybrid and home working, continue to shape space needs. Together with structural drivers such as urbanisation and smaller household sizes, these factors should support increased long-term demand.

Structural differences across the UK and continental Europe, including, in some markets, limited land availability, denser urban environments, differing mobility patterns and lower consumerism, constrain large-scale development and make it unlikely that supply will reach US levels.

Despite these constraints, significant unmet demand remains and Self Storage has expanded rapidly across the UK and Europe over the past two decades.

In the UK, the market has almost tripled in size from 815 stores in 2012 to 2,280 in 2023, with supply and demand now more closely matched, although regional pockets of imbalance persist and present selective opportunities for investors and operators. In continental Europe, a more pronounced structural undersupply continues to drive growth.


US capacity to absorb new supply is a positive indicator for Europe’s long-term runway

In the US, Covid generated a boom in Self Storage, during which occupancy rates rose above 90% and triggered a surge in new development. As pandemic-driven demand eased, this rapid expansion led to oversupply and a subsequent fall in occupancy.

After two years of rate compression, demand volatility, and aggressive discounting, the market is now beginning to stabilise, with new capacity gradually being absorbed.

Some regions are outperforming expectations while others remain oversupplied. Overall, the sector has undergone a healthy correction, digesting excess supply and normalising from unsustainably high Covid-era demand. Over the past five years, around 290 million sq ft of storage space has been built, equivalent to roughly 14% of total inventory.

Current stabilised occupancy levels above 85% demonstrate that even in a mature market with substantial supply, underlying demand continues to expand to increasing supply. This demonstrates the potential of the European market with the ability to generate supply-driven demand and highlights the degree of undersupply in the market.

Savills Self Storage Database

Savills has developed a comprehensive, interactive database that maps every known Self Storage facility across the UK. Each record is cross-referenced and audited to remove duplication and outdated entries, creating a consistent foundation for assessing market maturity and identifying potential gaps in provision.

By layering catchment analysis, drive-time mapping and demographic modelling, the database reveals not only where facilities are located but also who they serve, offering insight into both the maturity and future growth potential of Self Storage markets across the region. Savills is extending this approach across Europe’s largest cities, providing a consistent and data-driven basis for cross-market comparison.

Operations & Performance

Pandemic-driven demand, fuelled by elevated housing market activity and changes in lifestyle and business operations, pushed occupancy and rents sharply higher.

In 2021–2022, increased housing transactions and the rapid expansion of online businesses reduced the need for retail real estate but raised storage requirements, creating a significant uplift in Self Storage demand across the UK and Europe. Momentum has since eased, with rental growth slowing and occupancy below peak levels.

Housing markets and GDP growth are strong drivers of Self Storage usage. GDP growth supports SME formation, inventory accumulation, and project activity, while housing market turnover generates temporary storage needs. Despite weak or negative GDP growth rates during and post-pandemic, we still saw increased business use as there was a shift to e-commerce and business models changed.

More recently, UK economic performance has weakened relative to continental Europe. By Q2 2025, UK GDP was 4.5% above its pre-pandemic level (Q4 2019), compared with a 6.0% increase in the euro area, reflecting the relatively softer domestic backdrop and explaining the weaker recent performance of the sector.

There has been significant variability in housing market performance across Europe and the UK. While some markets exceeded their 2017–2019 pre-Covid averages in 2023 and 2024, others remained well below this benchmark. Germany, France, the Netherlands and the UK recorded notably weak activity in 2023 and 2024, whereas Spain and Italy saw a strong uplift in transactions relative to pre-Covid levels.

Although, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands did register YoY increases between 2023 and 2024, despite remaining below 2017–2019 pre-Covid averages.

Notably, there is data that shows even when GDP growth and housing market performance is weak, demand for Self Storage can remain strong. This is a reflection of the diverse range of demand drivers fuelling growth and the undersupply of the market.

In the UK, factors such as under-penetration, supply–demand imbalance and consumer awareness have already risen towards mature levels, leaving the sector more exposed to macroeconomic headwinds. Competition is also higher, operator density and price transparency are greater, further increasing sensitivity to shifts in conditions which lower consumer demand.

With capacity at 0.82 sq ft per person in the UK, according to Savills data, versus c.0.3–0.4 sq ft per person in many continental markets, the remaining catch-up is smaller and structural tailwinds weaker.

In continental Europe, these dynamics remain stronger and continue to drive growth, and over the next decade, we expect selected geographies to follow a trajectory similar to the UK’s last decade, albeit from a lower base and with some moderation.

Rental Growth & Occupancy

Listed Self Storage players saw rental growth peak in 2022, but this growth has slowed down in the years following. For instance, Big Yellow reported like-for-like rental growth of 8% between 2021 and 2022, Safestore increased 11%, and Shurgard 8.9%.

In 2025 we have seen reduced rental growth, with some variability between countries, for example, Shurgard reported greater rental growth in Sweden in H1 2025 relative to H1 2024, than between 2024 and 2023.

The UK has had weaker rental growth among listed providers in 2024 and 2025 compared to other European geographies, with listed providers reporting rental growth of over 7% in geographies such as the Netherlands.

We can expect rental growth to remain strong in emerging markets, where undersupply and widening supply–demand imbalances continue to create scope for further price increases.

Following the pandemic, occupancy rose sharply, peaking in 2021. As some Covid-related demand drivers reverted in 2022–2023, occupancy eased amid lower housing transactions and weak GDP growth.

Notably, operators added capacity during this period, so part of the post-2021 decline reflects new facilities expanding market supply rather than just weaker demand.

Through 2024–2025, listed operators reported broadly stable occupancy, with most continental European markets ahead of the UK, reflecting the factors noted earlier.

Demand drivers & costs

Operating costs have risen sharply due to high inflation, increased business rates in the UK, and uplifts in National Insurance and the minimum wage, with variability across geographies. These pressures are easing to some extent and have accelerated the adoption of automation and reduction in FTEs per store.

While technology was already a strategic focus, the current cost environment has made operational efficiency a more urgent priority.

Marketing and staff costs vary between portfolios, reflecting both geographical and operational differences, but there are clear winners, where operators are scaling and driving efficiencies. There are polarised views on the marginal benefit of high staff levels, with some operators viewing them as essential to security, the customer experience and conversion of enquiries.

On the marketing side, spend is largely determined by portfolio maturity and the operator’s strategic positioning and scale in each market, which together shape the level of investment needed to drive demand and sustain occupancy. In the current cost environment, optimising spending and maintaining discipline around operational efficiencies will be critical to sustaining margins, as well as providing an opportunity to lower operational costs on a per square metre basis with time.

For 2025, the European Commission forecasts GDP growth of 0.9% for the euro area and 1.1% for the EU, rising to 1.4% and 1.5%, respectively, in 2026. The OECD projects UK growth of 1.3% in 2025 and 1.0% in 2026. This implies the difference in UK and European Self Storage operator performance in 2025 may be subdued, with the gap extending further in 2026.

Given the relative immaturity of many continental European markets, characterised by wider supply–demand imbalances, greater scope to raise awareness and lower competitive intensity, we expect continued outperformance versus the UK, supported by stronger GDP growth and housing markets in 2026 but with geographical differentiation.

The UK remains the largest and most mature market, with the highest awareness. Opportunities persist in regional pockets, but selectivity is essential and should be underpinned by a data-led investment thesis.

Across both regions, value will depend on deploying economically viable operating models and using technology and new formats effectively.

In this evolving market, specialist advice is critical for feasibility analysis, site selection and operating model design.

Looking ahead, economic headwinds, including elevated inflation and subdued housing activity, remain key concerns for operators.

In the UK, the emphasis is likely to stay on operational efficiency, cost control, digitisation and new fourth generation best-in-class stores and experimental new formats such as urban Self Storage and drive-up. Even so, structural drivers, such as ongoing urbanisation, continue to support demand.

In continental Europe, the supportive factors are stronger, with greater scope for primary demand growth as awareness rises and urbanisation continues.

Formats & Expansion Models

Self Storage operators across the UK and Europe are increasingly exploring new formats, ranging from urban stores, which are typically sub-5,000 sq ft sites in city centres using a centrally managed model, or drive-up units, hub-and-satellite configurations, and other product types that enable expansion into previously underserved locations.

We are also seeing the expansion of container storage platforms in several UK sub-markets, with some evolving towards more professionally managed formats.

This segment is extending the sector’s reach through alternative models.

Current market activity suggests that high-quality, modern, premium facilities are performing strongly and risk out-positioning older stock in certain markets, potentially creating an increasingly two-tier market for operators and customers.

In response to rising costs and improving technology, the number of remotely managed stores across Europe rose sharply in 2024–2025. Adoption varies by market, with particularly strong uptake in the Nordics. Green Storage, Sweden’s largest operator, has committed to an automated model and has retrofitted all stores with electronic locks to enable unattended operation.

In Central Europe, Austria has a large number of remotely managed micro-sites.Notably, the mix is shifting towards smaller sites in several markets, with micro stores spreading from Austria and Germany and container formats gaining ground, prompting operators to target micro catchments; however, average store size is not uniformly declining across Europe.

Technology & Security

Digital management platforms are reshaping the sector, streamlining the customer journey through online booking, payment and communication tools, whilst also enabling remote site management and leaner staffing. Operators are increasingly providing transparent online pricing and a full end-to-end booking journey to lift conversion, but many operators are still gating pricing online.

As social and local digital marketing grow as enquiry sources, businesses are investing in live chat, space estimators and AI-assisted FAQs. These capabilities will increasingly become baseline expectations for consumers rather than differentiators.

Technology-enabled security is being upgraded. Smart access controls, electronic locks, and monitored CCTV improve both operational efficiency and customer confidence. AI applications are beginning to scale.

Dynamic pricing tools adjust rates by unit type and demand signals within preset guardrails, while lead-scoring and workflow automation help teams prioritise sales activity. Resource optimisation and simple demand forecasting support staffing and capex decisions at portfolio level.

Payments and back-office processes are also moving online. Open banking and digital wallet options reduce churn at renewal, with automated late payment chasing and chargeback handling improving cash collection.

Data integration across property management systems, CRM and finance systems creates a single view of the customer and enables KPI tracking.

Finally, many operators are pairing tech with efficiency measures, including LED lighting, smart meters and on-site solar where feasible, to reduce operating costs and support ESG reporting.

Outlook
  • The macroeconomic environment is stabilising, but while interest rates have eased from their 2023 peaks, both capital and operational costs remain above pre-2020 levels.
  • Financing conditions are expected to improve gradually through 2026, but the higher cost of debt means investment decisions will remain operationally driven, focused on platform efficiency, income resilience, and demonstrable margin control.
  • Persistent NAV discounts among listed operators and re-adjusted expectations in private valuations are creating opportunities for well-capitalised investors.
  • Consolidation, platform-scale M&A, and selective entry by investors seeking to acquire quality portfolios are likely to be defining features of 2026.
  • As the sector continues to consolidate, growing platform scale will enable greater operational efficiency, cost savings and pricing power. Larger operators are realising measurable advantages through shared marketing, procurement, technology integration and lower financing costs.
  • Moving forward, digital transformation, automation, remote management, and AI-assisted tools will reduce fixed costs and improve customer acquisition, while integrated data systems and dynamic pricing will enhance yield management and margin control. ESG-aligned technologies, including smart meters and solar retrofits, will further improve efficiency and attract institutional capital.
  • Looking at the more mature US market demonstrates the long-term growth potential for the UK and continental Europe as the sector matures, with penetration and brand awareness set to rise substantially over the coming decade. We expect consolidation to lead to major portfolios with dominant and well-recognised brands.
  • The Self Storage sector is expected to remain a key beneficiary of capital rotation into operational real estate. With structural undersupply, scalable operating platforms, and stable inflation-linked income, the market is positioned for continued institutional expansion and steady long-term growth across the UK and Europe.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Self Storage

Savills Operational Capital Markets