Region leads Big Box demand despite dip in new schemes
The East Midlands remains a key location for the large industrial and logistics sector, despite a fall in investment activity of around 15% against the previous year, according to new figures from Avison Young.
The firm’s Big Box Bulletin report, released today, showed the region was responsible for around 31% of all total take-up of Grade A space in the past year, with national figures hitting their best levels since 2022 at 22.6m sq ft, up 5.6% year-on-year.
However, despite improved momentum across the final quarter, Big Box investment activity was down 15% year-on-year and 42% below the five-year average, falling to a total of £1.65bn in 2025 as a whole.
The drop came despite a late recovery in Q4, which saw investment volumes hit £562m, up 32% on the previous quarter.
While the East Midlands remains dominant in the sector, two of the largest deals of the year took place in Coventry, with JD Logistics and DP World taking just short of 500,000 sq ft across two sites at Ansty Park and SEGRO Park respectively.
David Willmer, head of industrial at Avison Young said the market had demonstrated “notable resilience” through a year shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, tariffs, persistent inflationary pressures, and a delayed UK Budget.
“Overall, the fundamentals of the UK big-box market remain strong, and we are confident that activity in 2026 will be similar or slightly better than in 2025,” he said.
“The sector delivered its strongest year of take-up since 2022, totalling just shy of 23 million sq ft. Occupier activity increased, compared to 2024, with around 11 million sq ft of deals completed in the second half of the year, marking the strongest H2 performance since 2022.
“The East Midlands remained a key strategic location for occupiers and accounted for 31% of total take-up. Third-party logistics operators were the dominant driver of activity accounting for 41% of annual take-up as supply chain optimisation and long-term efficiency continued to shape occupier decision-making.
“Although there is a substantial supply of industrial stock, it is heavily weighted towards smaller unit sizes which continues to limit options for those occupiers with larger space requirements. We expect competition for larger units, particularly in prime locations, to remain strong in 2026 which could result in rental uplifts where supply is constrained. ”
According to the figures, total available space increased by 2% quarter on quarter, reaching 56.4m sq ft in Q4, indicating a gradually improving supply position.
Smaller units dominated the market, with approximately 72% of those available falling within the 100,000-399,999 sq ft range. Due to the continued weighting towards these units, larger occupiers faced some constraint, with limited availability for those requiring larger-scale space.
