UK Retail Marketbeat Reports

For the data behind the commentary, download the full Q3 2024 UK Retail Report.

Occupational market remains buoyant

The occupier market continues to remain buoyant, with a steady pipeline of new openings across major national schemes helping to sustain the much-improved sentiment of late. Despite a lack of material improvement in consumer spend, and ongoing uncertainty, the increasingly prevalent pockets of healthy trading performance and a renewed focus on real estate strategy has continued to deliver new openings, most notably for strong brands with the ability to pay strong headline rent levels.

Performance continues to improve

Fierce competition to capitalise on limited consumer spend has bought about a focus on real estate and physical locations. For category leaders this has meant a greater focus on right-sizing their real estate portfolio with a particular emphasis on experience, retail media, and converting lower levels of footfall into spend. More broadly this has meant an honest assessment of retail footprints, resulting in both expansion into new locations as well as continued rationalisation for some brands.

Investment market well positioned to capitalise on recovery

The retail investment market continues to see elevated levels of liquidity, and strong asset performance across its major sub sectors. However, and perhaps a contrast from other asset classes remains a lack of suitable investment options for those looking to re-enter or increase sector allocations. Despite the lack of supply, the sentiment amongst investors is that the sector has now reached the bottom of the cycle and in place has begun to recover.