StuRents' Annual Student Accommodation Report 2024 - Available Now

Christmas has come early! StuRents’ Annual Student Accommodation Report 2024 is out now, offering a comprehensive retrospective on the 2024-25 letting cycle, as well as a discussion on what the future may hold for the sector.

On top of leveraging data from StuRents’ listings platform, StuRents.com, and property management software, Concurrent, the Research team has welcomed insightful contributions from Fusion Group, JMW Solicitors, Moorfield Group, KKR and UCAS.

Here, we have a look at a few highlights from the report, covering key areas of student budgets and affordability, rental growth, PBSA occupancy and the impact of Build-to-Rent on the market.

Student Budgets

Source: Concurrent

Looking at the average rent per person per week (pppw) across all types of accommodation, the budget differences between student demographics really stand out. For the 2024-25 academic year, after adjusting for utilities, British students were signing contracts at an average of £158pppw, while students from China were averaging £224pppw. However, it’s important to note that the ‘international’ student demographic is not a homogenous one, with Indian students signing for an average of £146pppw.

Affordability

Source: StuRents, Gov.uk

Affordability is a growing challenge for students. As shown in the above chart, the weekly leftover from a typical maintenance loan (for students from households earning £40,000) has dropped from £27 in 2021 to just £8 in 2024, after rent has been deducted. This highlights an increasing dependence on family support or part-time work to make ends meet.

Rental Growth

Source: StuRents

While average HMO and PBSA rents across the UK both grew this year, by 5.3% and 8.1% respectively, the outlook varies significantly on both a city and intra-city basis. Taking the examples shown in the above chart, Glasgow rents on a like-for-like basis jumped by 10.2%, while Coventry rents fell by 0.7%.

Fortunes varied at a scheme level within these two locations as well. One scheme in Glasgow reported growth of 14%, with another reporting a below-average increase of 9.2%. There were even more pronounced differences in Coventry, with one scheme reporting a 16.3% decrease, in great contrast to another scheme's 2.8% increase.

PBSA Occupancy

Source: StuRents Occupancy Survey

Sticking with the theme of inter-location dynamics, the above chart, using data from StuRents’ Occupancy Survey, reveals a large spread in leasing performance. In our sample of five locations, the difference in occupancy between the highest and lowest performers reached a peak of 40.5 percentage points in March. This highlights the stark differences in PBSA supply vs demand across different locations in the UK.

Build-to-Rent Impact

Source: StuRents

Build-to-Rent (BTR), and its impact on the student accommodation market, has become an increasingly hot topic among PBSA operators and investors alike. Taking Leeds as an example, the above chart shows that without considering BTR, it appears demand has grown faster than supply, with ~12k students added to the market between 2017-2024 vs supply growth of ~7k.

However, once BTR is factored in, the outlook can drastically change, with an estimated change in supply of 15k vs demand growth of ~12k. This shows how BTR’s effect on supply vs demand dynamics is becoming impossible to ignore.

Download our Annual Student Accommodation Report 2024

Dive into this and much, much more in the full report - which can be found here.