PBSA Shortfall | March 2023
Not enough student beds
There are now almost 2.2 million university students in full-time education in the UK (an 8% increase from 2021). However, there continues to be a shortfall of student beds as the new PBSA (purpose-built student accommodation) supply is not currently keeping up with the increasing demand.
A mature market in the UK, investor appetite for the sector remains strong as Knight Frank’s ‘Student Property Report’ portrayed a record £7.2bn of UK PBSA investment in 2022.
“The UK is the largest PBSA market in Europe” says Nick Whitten, Head of EMEA and UK Living & Residential Research at JLL. However, Data from StuRents forecasts that by 2025, there will be a shortage of around 450,000 student beds.
The shortfall of student beds in cities historically with the strongest growth in student numbers e.g. Bristol and Manchester, is increasing at a rate of over 1,000 bed spaces short every year (Knight Frank, 2023).
Most UK university cities are struggling to house all their students and between now and 2030, full-time UK undergraduate numbers are only expected to rise.
Cushman & Wakefield recently reported that there are 697,734 PBSA beds, and 175,910 of which are older, poor-quality first-generation schemes.
Demand continuing to outstrip supply in PBSA is putting added pressure on the private rental market in every UK university city.
Kosy Student is committed to respond to this shortage by securing well located sites UK-wide to deliver much needed modern and high-quality purpose-built student homes for the next generations.
