The industrial and logistics sector has been on a tremendous run over the past five years or so. It is hard to think now, given the current dynamics in the property industry, that retail and offices were the sectors of choice for investors for many years with industrial cast aside by most.
All that changed, primarily off the back of a fundamental shift in consumer buying habits. Amazon has become a behemoth and online-only retailers have popped up and taken significant market share from their high street rivals – operating from a network of warehouses across the country. The trend towards ecommerce, and its effect on both the industrial and retail sectors, is well-known. Consumer spending online has been growing dramatically to the point now where just under 20% of all retail transactions in the UK are made on the internet.
This has meant that traditional retailers, as well as their online-only peers, have been scrambling to get their distribution networks functioning efficiently. Long gone are the days of one huge warehouse in the middle of the country that served a retailer’s shops. It now needs several distribution centres that serve not only the shops but smaller logistics hubs close to major towns and cities, which in turn serve home deliveries. The invention of same-day – and even one-hour – deliveries has intensified the need for an efficient network and ultimately more industrial and logistics space.
The run of success in the sector, which has been on a continuous upward trajectory for more than five years, raises the question: how long can it last? How much further can rental growth go? Are investment yields, which are sub-4% for prime stock, sustainable? Is there too much speculative development in the market?
Here we explore the undercurrents that continue to drive the sector, further opportunities that exist and the threats that could curtail growth.
