UK self storage market size and statistics · 2026
UK self storage market size and statistics, with sources.
Reviewed by Phil McParlane, Founder
The UK self storage market in numbers: stores, turnover, floorspace, occupancy, revenue per sq ft and who uses storage. Each figure is credited to the organisation that published it and dated, and where the published sources disagree we say so.
On this page
UK self storage in numbers
Last checked 5 October 2026. Last updated 5 October 2026. Source unless stated: SSA UK with Cushman & Wakefield, Self Storage Annual Report 2026 (covering 2025).
- 3,143
- stores (an estimate: 1,895 internal, 1,248 container-based)
- Almost £1.3bn
- turnover in 2025
- 67.5m sq ft
- maximum lettable area (62.4m currently lettable); space up 5% (Cushman & Wakefield’s report page)
- 74.5%
- occupancy, all stores, on current lettable area; 79.6% at mature stores (no opening or expansion in four years)
- £27.40
- revenue per sq ft, ex VAT, down 5.1% from £28.87; the 2024 and 2025 editions measure it on occupied space, and we have not found the basis stated in the 2026 report
- 76%
- of surveyed customers domestic, 24% business (survey of 232 customers)
- 40%
- of 2025 openings container-based (SSA UK’s headline; the report’s text also prints 48%)
Scotland, StoreBay’s own count: 21% of the Scottish self storage websites we could read let a visitor choose a unit and book it online (40 of 188, checked 14 October 2026). It is a count of websites, not a survey, and it counts differently from SSA UK’s 94.2% of stores. How we counted.
UK self storage over three annual reports
Each row is from that year’s SSA UK and Cushman & Wakefield annual report. Definitions and samples can change between editions: read the change as a direction, not a growth rate.
| Report | Published figures |
|---|---|
| 2024 report (covering 2023) | Published figures2,706 stores · 60m sq ft · just under £1.1bn · around 1,400 operators |
| 2025 report (covering 2024) | Published figures2,915 stores · 64.3m sq ft · just under £1.2bn · around 1,480 operators |
| 2026 report (covering 2025) | Published figures3,143 stores · 67.5m sq ft · almost £1.3bn · about 1,570 operators (an estimate) |
01 / The market
How big UK self storage actually is
The national picture, from the industry's own annual report.
3,143
self storage stores in the UK
SSA UK’s estimate: 1,895 internal and 1,248 container-based stores. Around 230 new stores opened in 2025.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2026, interactive report
Almost £1.3bn
annual industry turnover, 2025
Across all stores and operator sizes.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2026
67.5m sq ft
total storage space
Maximum lettable area across the estate. The report also gives 62.4m sq ft of current lettable area, and an estimated 1,570 individual operators.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2026, interactive report
0.94 sq ft
of storage per head of population
In SSA UK’s 2025 edition, which covers 2024 (we have not found a per-head figure in the 2026 report pages). The 2024 edition, covering 2023, put the UK at 0.89 sq ft per person, against 2 sq ft in Australia and 7 sq ft in the US.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2025 (covering 2024), and 2024 edition (covering 2023)
02 / Demand & performance
What a UK store actually achieves
Occupancy and revenue are the two numbers an appraisal turns on.
74.5%
average occupancy, all stores
Mature stores (no new space or opening in the last four years) run at 79.6% in the SSA’s 2026 summary; the same report prints 79.1% on one tile and 80% in one text.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2026, interactive report
£27.40
average annual revenue per sq ft (ex VAT)
Down 5.1% from £28.87. SSA UK’s 2024 and 2025 editions measure revenue per square foot on occupied space, and we have not found where the 2026 report states its basis, so apply it to occupied lettable area, never to a building’s gross internal area: corridors, stairs and reception earn nothing, and vacant units earn nothing either.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2026, interactive report
76%
of surveyed customers are domestic, not business
In a survey of 232 customers (the 2025 edition surveyed 1,253 and found 73% domestic). SSA UK’s summary gives lack of space at home as the main reason customers store.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2026, interactive report; 2025 edition (covering 2024)
94.2%
of stores offer online booking
SSA UK’s figure, for stores. StoreBay’s own count of Scottish operators’ websites (the line under these figures) is lower; the two count different things.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2026
03 / Operators
How operators are entering and running sites
Where new supply comes from, how technology use is changing, and what rates and taxes cost.
40%
of new store openings are container storage
Container stores were 40% of new openings in 2025 in SSA UK’s headline and press release, against 29% in 2024. The report’s text elsewhere gives 48%. The report cites lower capital costs and faster deployment.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2026, interactive report
43%
of survey respondents use AI for content creation or image generation
Up from 13% a year earlier. In the same survey 21% used AI to analyse their own data (7% before) and 19% for chatbots and scraping of competitor pricing. The report materials also print a headline “actively using AI” figure, as 23% in some places and 54% in others, so we quote neither, and we do not try to reconcile them with these use-case figures. See “Where the published sources disagree”.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2026, interactive report
17.9%
of operating expenditure goes on rates and taxes
Staff costs are 26.9%. These are 2025 shares from the SSA UK and Cushman & Wakefield survey.
Source: SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report 2026, interactive report
43.2p / 48p / 50.8p
England business rates multipliers, 2026-27
In England, 2026-27: 43.2p below £51,000 rateable value and 48p from £51,000 to £499,999, unless the council treats the property as retail, hospitality or leisure (lower multipliers of 38.2p and 43p); 50.8p at £500,000 or more. Wales and the City of London use different multipliers. Small Business Rate Relief is 100% at a rateable value of £12,000 or less on a sole property, tapering to nil at £15,000.
Source: gov.uk (from 1 April 2026)
04 / The listed operators
What the REITs report
Big Yellow and Safestore, the two UK-listed operators this page quotes, publish detailed results twice a year. They run large portfolios, which makes them a benchmark for a comparable site and not for a small independent or a container yard.
70.5%
store-level EBITDA margin (Big Yellow, FY26)
On store revenue of £207.6m and store EBITDA of £146.5m, year to 31 March 2026. Average achieved rate £35.98/sq ft (+4%); closing occupancy 74.2%, 77.0% like-for-like. A listed REIT is not a proxy for a container yard.
Source: Big Yellow Group FY26 results
£234.3m
Safestore group revenue, year to 31 October 2025
Up 4.9%, or 5.0% at constant exchange rates; like-for-like +3.1%. Its half-year to 30 April 2026 reported revenue of £120.6m, up 5.6% at constant exchange rates.
Source: Safestore Holdings final results, 15 January 2026, and half-year results, 11 June 2026
c.€450m
expected European self storage investment (2025)
From c.€260m transacted year to date plus a c.€200m pipeline; the 2024 record was €1.2bn, and CBRE expected volumes to stabilise in 2025/26. Note this figure is Europe-wide, not UK.
Source: CBRE with FEDESSA, European Self Storage Industry Report 2025
05 / What we don't publish
Where the published sources disagree
These are places where the 2026 report materials, and one earlier edition, print different numbers for what looks like the same figure. Each row says which figure we use; for the share of operators using AI we use none.
| Figure | What the sources print | What we use |
|---|---|---|
| Operators using AI | What the sources print23% (SSA UK’s summary page; the introduction on Cushman & Wakefield’s report page, “from 9%”) or 54% (the key findings on that page; the interactive report, “up from 25%”). | What we useWe quote no headline figure. |
| Container share of new openings, 2025 | What the sources print40% (SSA UK’s headline and press release; the report’s landscape section and container headline) or 48% (the report’s key themes and container text). | What we useWe use 40%. |
| Change in revenue per sq ft, 2025 | What the sources print5.1% (key findings and key themes, £28.87 to £27.40), 5.4% (the occupancy section and a figure panel) and 7.4% to £26.97 (regional section; the outlook repeats 7.4%). | What we useWe use 5.1%, which is what £28.87 to £27.40 works out to. |
| Revenue per sq ft, 2024 | What the sources print£29.13 (the 2025 edition, which covers 2024) or £28.87 (the 2026 report’s prior-year figure). | What we useWe use £28.87 for the 2025 change, because the 2026 report prints it beside £27.40. We have not found an explanation for the difference. |
| Mature-store occupancy | What the sources print79.6% (headline and text) or 79.1% (one panel). | What we useWe use 79.6%. |
Figures we deliberately leave out, and why
A statistics page is only worth citing if it is honest about its limits. These are figures we could easily have published, and chose not to.
A UK-vs-US storage-per-person multiple
We quote the UK figures SSA UK publishes and the comparators beside them in the 2024 edition (2 sq ft in Australia and 7 in the US). We do not compute a multiple across editions.
A market prime yield
We can source one operator’s figure: Big Yellow’s FY26 results give a net initial year-one NOI yield of 5.1% on its same stores and 4.7% across all 113 stores. That is one operator’s portfolio, not the market’s prime yield, and we have not found a free primary UK prime-yield figure.
Competitor prices that are not published
Several UK vendors are quote-only. Where a vendor publishes no price list we say so and stop; we never estimate, extrapolate or infer a figure on their behalf.
06 / Using these figures
How to cite this page
Every figure above belongs to the organisation credited beside it — cite them, not us.
Where a figure comes from the SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield Annual Industry Report, cite that report directly. Where it comes from a listed operator’s results, cite the results announcement. If this page itself is useful as the collation, cite it as “StoreBay (2026) UK self storage market size and statistics. Last updated 5 October 2026. https://storebay.co.uk/uk-self-storage-industry-statistics” and please keep the source attribution attached to the number.
We change “Last updated” when a figure, its source or its basis changes, when we add or remove a figure, or when we correct an error. Wording, layout and re-checks that find nothing new move “Last checked” alone. Next triggers: SSA UK’s next annual report, the 2026 CBRE and FEDESSA European report, each listed operator’s half-year and full-year results, and the business rates multipliers each April.
Quote any figure here with a link to this page; each figure belongs to the source named beside it.
07 / Common questions
Industry statistics FAQ
UK-built · published pricing · everything included