Around 14 million sq ft of extra industrial space will be needed by 2030 in order to meet the government’s defence ambitions
Around 1.3m sq ft of UK industrial space was delivered in the first half of 2026, but planning restrictions, land supply, grid connections, and a lack of skilled workers are limiting further delivery.
The UK’s agenda is currently to increase defence capacity and capability spending to meet its NATO commitments and to maintain a leading position in technology and manufacturing capability.
The report was put together by Real Estate:UK (RE:UK), CoStar, and Savills
The RE:UK x CoStar Market Spotlight – A Case for the Defence report is a snapshot of the defence sector, covering how the latest agenda is driving demand in manufacturing, engineering, and the wider supply chain.
It also highlights many barriers for landlords and developers that prevent them from reaching the required 32m sq ft by the end of 2033, or 14m sq ft by the end of the decade. In addition, another 2.6m sq ft of office and R&D space may be needed to support these ambitions.
Challenges stem from planning, infrastructure capacity, connectivity, energy constraints, land supply, and regional skills strategies, and so RE:UK is calling on the government to tackle these challenges and work with local areas to overcome them.
Vanessa Hale, chief executive, Real Estate:UK, said: “Despite the strong first half of this year, our analysis suggests that to meet the ambitions of the increased defence spending, then this requires an expansion of up to 14 million sq ft of additional UK industrial and logistics space by the end of this decade.
“Given the barriers currently being faced by developers and landlords to delivering this, including planning, land supply, grid connections and skills, then we would cite this as a significant risk to the government’s overall defence objectives and would call for a collaborative approach to help solve them”.
“Significant knock-on effects on real estate”
Grant Lonsdale, senior director of Market Analytics, CoStar Group, said: “CoStar’s data highlights the scale of the potential for the real estate sector, with the first half of 2026 seeing some of the strongest defence-related activity for over a decade.
“For landlords and developers, the sector is becoming an increasingly important source of demand, helping to diversify occupier requirements beyond more traditional drivers such as e-commerce and third-party logistics”.
Robert Pearson, director, Savills, concluded: “The UK Government’s Defence Investment Plan should have significant knock-on effects on real estate, as increased defence spending translates into demand for advanced manufacturing, secure logistics, office, R&D, storage and supply chain infrastructure.
“Delivery of the government’s military goals depends heavily on the availability of suitable physical space. Defence occupiers often need secure, power enabled, resilient and highly specialised facilities, with specific requirements around access, servicing, ownership, clearance and operational security”.
