With all European Q1 data now received, it’s pleasing to note that across the continent industrial and logistics take-up has risen by 4.3% year-on-year to reach 69.9 million sq ft. Standout geographies include Italy and Spain where take-up has risen 65% and 49% respectively.
As the UK and European logistics industry wraps up its annual Shedmasters conference in Lisbon there are signs that the market is looking positive.
Turning to the UK, where most conference delegates are arriving from, and utilising some of the more granular and leading indicators of demand such as requirements and viewings data, we can see a interesting picture painted for the year ahead.
Q1 requirements off to a good start
The Savills UK requirements index has been active since Q1 2020 and in that time has seen occupier requirements rise dramatically due to the Covid-19 pandemic, then normalising through the Ukraine war and subsequent cost of living crisis. In 2025, the market also had to contend with the implementation of US tariffs on many goods on 2 April. The initial market reaction saw requirements fall before a modest rebound as the year progressed. This year, following the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East, a different pattern has emerged: occupier requirements rose in the first quarter, albeit from a subdued base given Q4 was stymied by the UK Budget in November. The requirement index increased by 7.5% in Q1 2026 with no discernible shift in the volume of observed requirements in March after the conflict started in late February. Generally, the index shows a strong correlation between the level of requirements in the market and then take-up three quarters later. This means that, given the current level of the index, there are enough requirements in the market for 2026 take-up to be around the 2025 take-up level of 33.4 million sq ft.
Strong pattern of building viewings
Perhaps an even stronger leading indicator of demand is building viewings, which we have been tracking since the start of 2025. Here we can see that April 2026 was the strongest recorded month since our records began with 186 separate warehouse viewings across the country. If we take a longer-term view and look at the first four months of 2026 versus the last four months of 2025 it’s evident that viewings increased by 108%. If we examine viewing patterns by region we can see that, generally speaking, they correlate with take-up patterns with The Midlands accounting for 44% of viewings since Jan 2025, followed by London and the South East with 14% and then Yorkshire with 10%. It is interesting to observe, however, that both the North East and North West have had a surge in viewings in the first quarter which would position themselves well for the year ahead.
Clearly, the longer the situation in the Middle East remains uncertain, the more pronounced the economic impact will be. There is of course no certainty that a requirement evolves into a viewing which then evolves into a transaction, but given the seriousness of the wider geopolitical environment it is encouraging that the leading indicators that we can observe remain in buoyant territory.
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