The majority of commercial properties in the UK are in London, followed by Birmingham and then Manchester.

The Most

The city with the most availability of commercial properties is London – as expected. However, Manchester has the most retail space available and Birmingham is 2 percentage points behind London for office space despite being 8 times smaller in regard to population.

Office space in Birmingham is a mixture of perhaps too much availability and a strong market demand for the asset type causing such high stock levels. From Shepherd Commercial‘s point of view, we have noticed a stabilisation of office demand in recent months with a deeper focus on high quality space.

Rents in Birmingham are also much cheaper within the office sector in comparison to London.

Retail

Retail is lead by Manchester with stock levels at their highest in 6 years. Birmingham trails in third with retail stock as the city and Manchester both take two different approaches to attracting investment.

Birmingham has taken a more corporate approach to the city core with the attraction of the likes of Goldman Sach’s, where as Manchester is a much more creative city in its entirety with a hyper-focus on the retail sector.

London retail is an unchanged market which demand is so high that stock levels remain almost unfazed by market conditions.