UK self storage seasonality: what the public data shows

On 16 October 2026 we found no independent public monthly series for the whole UK self storage industry. What is public is thin: one listed operator’s results, which show space let rising from April to June and falling from October to December, and HMRC’s monthly count of home purchases, a rough proxy for house moves. This guide charts both, as at 16 October 2026, and says what each can and cannot tell an operator.

Is UK self storage seasonal?

At the one operator that publishes the detail, yes. Big Yellow Group says in its full-year results of 18 May 2026: “This is a seasonal business and typically we see growth over the spring and the summer months, with the seasonally weaker period being the winter months.” It has made the same statement in every full-year result since May 2018; the 2018 wording says “periods”.

On 16 October 2026 we found no independent public source that gives that detail for the whole industry: the Self Storage Association UK’s 2025 and 2026 reports and Savills’ half-year round-up give annual figures only, and the only monthly figures in them are housing-market context. One software vendor charts occupancy by month from its own customers’ sites, which describes that vendor’s users, not the industry.

Safestore is the other large listed operator. On 16 October 2026 we found no sentence on seasonality in nine of its results and trading updates, from January 2024 to September 2026. Its update of 22 February 2024 did call a November to January outflow “expected”, so the pattern is known to it, though on 16 October 2026 we found no chart of it in those documents.

What do Big Yellow’s results show about the year?

Big Yellow’s financial year runs from 1 April to 31 March, and it reports the change in occupied space each quarter. In the three years to March 2018, 2019 and 2020 it gained space from April to June (183,000, 131,000 and 125,000 sq ft) and lost it from October to December (170,000, 126,000 and 165,000 sq ft).

It calls October to December its weakest quarter. In November 2018 it wrote: “Our third quarter is historically the weakest trading quarter and in recent years, we have typically lost two to three percentage points of occupancy before a return to growth in the new year.” In November 2025 it still said: “Self storage is a seasonal business, and we typically lose occupancy in the quarter to December.”

The loss was 3.7% of its maximum lettable area in the year to March 2018, 2.7% in 2019 and 3.5% in 2020. In October to December 2025 it lost 82,000 sq ft, against 180,000 a year earlier (trading statement of 20 January 2026).

In its half-year results Big Yellow also published monthly move-ins and move-outs for April to October, for the years 2017 to 2022. Averaged over 2017, 2018 and 2019, June was the busiest of those seven months for move-ins (8,265) and September the busiest for move-outs (9,650). June was the top move-in month in every year published from 2017 to 2022 except 2020, a lockdown year, and September was the top move-out month in every year.

The company explains the autumn exit: “The second quarter peaked in August and then many of our students and short term house movers vacated in September and October, leading to a net loss in occupied rooms and sq ft occupancy” (results of 22 May 2018). It also says the last two weeks of March are “historically when we see relatively strong gains in occupancy” (results of 9 June 2020).

These are one operator’s stores. By revenue, 75% of Big Yellow’s stores are in London and its commuter towns (results of 18 May 2026), so the figures describe a London-weighted portfolio, not the country.

What do house moves tell you about the year?

HMRC publishes monthly counts of residential property transactions completed in the UK with a value of £40,000 or above. Its background note says the number of transactions “is highly seasonal, with increased activity during summer months and less in winter” (release of 30 September 2026).

We compared each month with the average month of its own calendar year, for the eight years 2012 to 2019. HMRC says 2020 and 2021 were distorted by the pandemic and by temporary stamp duty thresholds, so we left them out. The median January was 20% below an average month, February 18% below and April 15% below. August was the highest month, 13% above, with October and November about 10% above.

The four years 2022 to 2025 have the same shape on their average: January 81 against an average month of 100, August 109 and October 112. March and April are bent by tax deadlines, and 2026 is left out because its latest months are provisional.

Those deadlines are the main trap. March 2016 had 171,370 completions and April 73,560; March 2025 had 165,690 and April 56,970. HMRC says the first came from “increased amounts of taxpayers completing before the introduction of higher rates for additional residential properties from April 2016”, and the second from “transactions brought forward ahead of the SDLT threshold reductions from 1 April 2025”. That is why March in the chart has such a long band.

A deadline like that reaches storage. Big Yellow wrote: “We saw subdued levels of activity in our first quarter, as many customers completed their house purchase prior to the changes in Stamp Duty thresholds from 1 April last year.” Stamp Duty Land Tax applies in England and Northern Ireland, so Scotland’s March and April 2025 counts (7,820 and 7,780) are flat.

The proxy has limits. A completion comes on average two to four months after an offer, and HMRC says the figures “may not accurately reflect the total number of properties bought, sold or transferred”. They count purchases, not lettings and not people who store goods.

They also do not move month for month with storage. Our calculation: indexed to its own April to October average, HMRC’s count peaks in August, Big Yellow’s move-ins in June and its move-outs in September, and the correlation between HMRC’s count and Big Yellow’s move-ins is 0.68 over those seven months, on the 2017 to 2019 averages.

Our inference: completions stay high from July to December (51% to 57% of a year’s total in every year we used) while Big Yellow loses space from October, so in late autumn the two move in opposite directions.

The shape also differs by nation. On the 2012 to 2019 average, February was 66 in Scotland against 81 for the UK. We did not check the seasonal shape in Wales or Northern Ireland.

When do students and businesses move?

Big Yellow said 13% of its move-ins in the year to March 2026 gave student storage as the reason (12% the year before). It reported “a record performance from students in June” 2022, once campuses had reopened, and says many students leave in September and October.

Universities set that calendar. Students at the University of Leeds move out of halls from 21 June to 11 July 2026, and 51-week postgraduates by 4 September 2026. Halls contracts at the University of Southampton for 2026 to 2027 end on 5 June, 24 to 26 June or 2 to 4 September 2027.

On 16 October 2026 we found no national source on when students move out (we searched for HESA, UCAS and Universities UK pages), so these are two English examples, not a national pattern.

Business customers are less clear. Big Yellow says of its business customers that “some are seasonal” and that it replaces vacated space with new move-ins “from online traders, e-tailers and service providers”.

Our calculation from the Office for National Statistics (ONS): GB online retail sales per week ran about 30% above the year’s average week in November and December, on the average of 2022 to 2025. That is online selling, not storage demand, and on 16 October 2026 we found no UK primary source linking online sellers’ autumn stock-building to storage demand.

Has the pattern held in recent years?

Until March 2025 it did. Across all Big Yellow stores, including Armadillo, which it has owned outright since 1 July 2021, occupied space rose in every April to September half and fell in every October to March half from September 2021 to March 2025. The summer halves added 139,000 to 318,000 sq ft; the winter halves lost 112,000 to 320,000.

Then it broke once. Occupied space fell 28,000 sq ft in the summer half to September 2025, when the pattern says it rises. The winter half to March 2026 lost 43,000, less than any winter half since 2021, while lettable capacity grew from 6.42 million to 6.72 million sq ft with new stores. Occupancy of lettable space fell from 78.7% at March 2025 to 74.2% at March 2026.

Big Yellow linked the weak spring of 2025 to “macroeconomic uncertainty” and to housing demand pulled forward into March ahead of the stamp duty change (results of 17 November 2025). In April to June 2026 it gained 161,000 sq ft, against 47,000 a year earlier. Our reading: seasonality is a pattern around a trend, and a trend of new stores filling can hide it for a year or two.

What does seasonality mean for pricing and offers?

None of this tells you what discount works, and on 16 October 2026 we found no public data on discount depth. What it does show is that large operators plan for a winter outflow, and that Safestore reported discounting in one. Our reading, from two operators:

• Expect the outflow. Big Yellow says it typically loses occupancy in October to December. Safestore called its November to January outflow “expected” (22 February 2024).
• One operator reported discounting in the weak quarter. Safestore reported “selective, focused discounting in November and December 2023”, which affected rate slightly, and said rate was back above its October 2023 level in January 2024.
• A summer offer meets the busiest move-in month. In Big Yellow’s figures June is the month customers arrive anyway.

Our guide to self storage pricing strategy covers how to set and change a licence fee.

What does it mean for marketing spend and staffing?

Big Yellow’s move-ins in June averaged 8,265 a month in 2017 to 2019, 57% more than April’s 5,274 and 44% more than October’s 5,747 (our calculation). Our inference: a customer who moves in during June enquires earlier, so spend that wants June move-ins starts in spring, not in June.

Our reading: September is the staffing peak. Big Yellow’s move-outs averaged 9,650 in September against 4,950 in June, nearly twice as many units to check, clean and let again. On average June added 3,315 more move-ins than move-outs and September lost 2,725 (our calculation).

These are one London-weighted operator’s figures from before 2020. Test them against your own site before you set a rota. Our guide to self storage marketing covers measuring move-ins rather than clicks.

How do you see your own seasonal pattern?

Use the method this guide used on the public figures:

1. Export move-ins and move-outs by month for each site, for at least three years.
2. Divide each month by the average month of its year.
3. Take the median for each month across the years, and keep the lowest and highest year as the band.
4. Set aside one-offs: a store opening, a promotion, a tax deadline, a lockdown.
5. Track occupied space as well as counts, as Big Yellow does: the net change shows what the move-ins and move-outs did to the book.

In StoreBay, the Move-ins & move-outs report shows units let and units handed back side by side, by day, week or month, for any period up to two years, for all your sites or one. Its figures start with your records in StoreBay: customers brought across in an import are not counted as move-ins.

It counts units, not customers, so an occupier with two units counts twice. Our guide to self storage KPIs sets out the other numbers to read alongside it.

What does this guide not cover?

• A national monthly series. On 16 October 2026 we found no independent one (see the first section).
• Google Trends. The Explore page for “self storage” in the UK could not be read by a scripted browser on 16 October 2026, and Google says Trends scales a sample from 0 to 100, so it is not a count of searches or of storage demand.
• Other operators. The monthly and quarterly detail comes from Big Yellow alone; Safestore’s pattern is not charted.
• Wales and Northern Ireland. We did not check their seasonal shapes.
• Price by month. We did not study how asking rates move through the year.

Sources

All read on 16 October 2026.

• HMRC’s Monthly property transactions completed in the UK with value of £40,000 or above, its background and references and commentary, updated 30 September 2026.
• HMRC’s table file MPT_Tab_Sep_26.ods, Table 3, residential completions by month.
• Big Yellow Group’s results for the year ended 31 March 2026, 18 May 2026.
• Big Yellow’s results for the six months ended 30 September 2025, 17 November 2025.
• Big Yellow’s results for the six months ended 30 September 2018, 20 November 2018, with the monthly tables, and its results for the six months ended 30 September 2020, 2021 and 2022.
• Big Yellow’s results for the year ended 31 March 2018, 2019 and 2020.
• Big Yellow’s results presentation for the year ended 31 March 2026, for the share of move-ins that were students.
• Big Yellow’s trading statement of 20 January 2026 and Q1 trading statement of 20 July 2026.
• Safestore Holdings’ first quarter trading update, 22 February 2024.
• Safestore’s nine other results and trading updates searched for a sentence on seasonality: 17 January 2024, 16 January 2025 (also the source of its 8% to 13% estimate), 20 February 2025, 10 June 2025, 27 November 2025, 15 January 2026, 19 February 2026, 11 June 2026 and 3 September 2026.
• The Leeds accommodation key dates and Southampton’s fees and contracts pages.
• The ONS internet retail sales by sector, release of 28 July 2026.
• Google’s Trends help page.
• The Self Storage Association UK’s annual report 2025 and 2026 interactive report and Savills’ half-year round-up.