Student landlord Unite passes growth test

Britain’s biggest student landlord reported rental growth of 8.2 per cent for the 2024-25 academic year, ahead of its 7 per cent guidance and fuelled by a record number of undergraduate students.
Unite Group said there was continued high demand for university places from school leavers. The number of places given to UK 18-year-olds, its core demographic, hit a record, up 3 per cent.
It anticipates raising their rents by between 4-5 per cent in the next academic year. The most expensive rooms in London fetch close to £500 per week.
Occupancy rate was 97.5 per cent, “below last year but in line with the long-term trend”, analysts at Peel Hunt said.
A change in visa policy has meant that from the start of this year, international students are no longer able to bring family members into the country.
Postgraduate international recruitment had been hit by this, the company said, and it expected that institutions dependent on Nigerian and Indian students would be particularly affected.
Founded in 1991 in Bristol, Unite has become the largest owner of student accommodation in Britain, renting out rooms to 70,000 students. Like its peers, it has benefited from strong rental growth as smaller landlords have left the sector because of soaring mortgage rates and regulatory changes.
Joe Lister, the FTSE 100 company’s chief executive, said: “The outlook for the business is positive, with strong student demand at a time of limited new supply and ongoing investment into our portfolio and platform. This supports rental growth of 4-5 per cent for the 2025-26 academic year.”
He added: “We have made good progress with the delivery of our record development pipeline and deploying the proceeds of our recent capital raise. These projects will deliver much-needed new student homes in some of the UK’s strongest university cities and help to ease wider housing shortages.”
Unite announced that it had secured four new agreements with Russell Group universities, which covered more than 2,500 beds.
The company described prospects for the 2025-26 academic year as “positive”. It expects that the UK will continue to be attractive to international students, as other countries such as Australia and Canada have recently introduced caps on foreign students.
Unite is still tackling the problem of fixing cladding on some of its buildings, with 13 projects this year and a further 12 expected next year. It won a claim against one contractor in this quarter, winning £18 million, bringing its total successful claims this year to £24 million. The company said it expected to recover up to three quarters of the cost of bringing cladding in line with new regulations.
Analysts at Stifel said Unite shares were “among the highest-rated in the sector”. They added that this was “reflective of continued growth in demand for Unite’s well-located assets, tight supply, and a well-funded balance sheet able to deliver developments when others are experiencing capital constraints”.
Unite Group shares were down 7½p, or 0.8 per cent, at 909p by Tuesday’s close.