LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 16, 2026--
UK warehouse demand increased after three years of occupier consolidation following the pandemic and a period of elevated costs, according to data from CoStar, a global leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information and analytics in the property markets.
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Industrial net absorption turned positive in the second quarter of 2026, reaching nearly 6 million square feet, its strongest reading in more than three years, while 12-month net absorption returned to positive territory after bottoming out at 23 million square feet in 2024.
Defence-linked demand reached nearly 1 million square feet in the first half, helped by the Ministry of Defence’s 545,000-square-foot facility at Panattoni Park Swindon.
“Defence is becoming an increasingly important source of warehouse demand, with take-up reaching a record 3.8 million square feet in 2025,” said Grant Lonsdale, senior director of market analytics at CoStar Europe.
Amazon has taken an estimated 6 million square feet over the past 18 months, including its 2 million-square-foot Segro Park Northampton facility, which opened last month. The company’s 900,000-square-foot Symmetry Park Kettering site is scheduled to open this autumn.
“Chinese e-commerce platforms continue expanding their UK logistics footprints to support faster delivery times and larger domestic inventories,” said Lonsdale.
Chinese occupier take-up is on course for another record year, with more than 2 million square feet leased or under offer by mid-2026.
The full analysis can be found here.
For more information about the company and its products and services, please visit www.costargroup.com.
About CoStar Group
CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP) is a global leader in commercial real estate information, analytics, online marketplaces, and 3D digital twin technology. Founded in 1986, CoStar Group is dedicated to digitizing the world’s real estate, empowering all people to discover properties, insights, and connections that improve their businesses and lives.
CoStar Group’s major brands include CoStar, a leading global provider of commercial real estate data, analytics, and news; LoopNet, the most trafficked commercial real estate marketplace; Apartments.com, the leading platform for apartment rentals; Homes.com, the fastest-growing residential real estate marketplace; and Domain, one of Australia’s leading property marketplaces. CoStar Group’s industry-leading brands also include Matterport, a leading spatial data company whose platform turns buildings into data to make every space more valuable and accessible; STR, a global leader in hospitality data and benchmarking; Ten-X, an online platform for commercial real estate auctions and negotiated bids; and OnTheMarket, a leading residential property portal in the United Kingdom.
CoStar Group’s websites attracted over 131 million average monthly unique visitors in the first quarter of 2026, serving clients around the world. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, CoStar Group is committed to transforming the real estate industry through innovative technology and comprehensive market intelligence. From time to time, we plan to utilize our corporate website as a channel of distribution for material company information. For more information, visit CoStarGroup.com.
This news release includes "forward-looking statements" including, without limitation, statements regarding CoStar's expectations or beliefs regarding the future. These statements are based upon current beliefs and are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. The following factors, among others, could cause or contribute to such differences: the risk that UK warehouse demand and net absorption does not improve as expected or is not due specifically to Chinese occupier take-up. More information about potential factors that could cause results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those stated in CoStar’s filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in CoStar’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025 and Forms 10-Q for the quarterly periods ended March 31, 2026, June 30, 2025, and September 30, 2025, each of which is filed with the SEC, including in the “Risk Factors” section of those filings, as well as CoStar’s other filings with the SEC available at the SEC’s website ( www.sec.gov ). All forward-looking statements are based on information available to CoStar on the date hereof, and CoStar assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Industrial and logistics net absorption bounces back
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s joint military command stepped up its threats on Thursday as intensifying U.S. airstrikes target the country, saying it would destroy “all the infrastructure in the region.”
The threat from the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters referenced U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated warning that he could launch attacks against power plants and bridges in Iran.
Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam Al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, issued the warning.
“All the infrastructure in the region will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran” should Trump’s threat be carried out, Zolfaghari said.
“Under no circumstances and in no way will we allow America, as a foreign and extra-regional country, to interfere in the Strait of Hormuz,” he added. “This is Iran’s invincible red line.”
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States intensified its strikes targeting Iran early Thursday, hitting targets further north as American forces also fired into a ship it accused of trying to break its naval blockade on the Islamic Republic. Iran retaliated with missile and drone fire targeting Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait before dawn.
Days of back-and-forth strikes by the U.S. and Iran across the Middle East — and renewed threats to the Strait of Hormuz — have shredded the interim deal to end the Iran war and could tip the region back into all-out war. Already, Iranian officials say U.S. strikes have killed more than 35 people and wounded over 300 others. Strikes also reached into areas around Iran’s capital, Tehran, for the first time of this latest round of violence.
When the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic, a move that sent the price of oil, fertilizer and many other goods soaring far beyond the region and gave Iran major leverage in negotiations.
An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Akbar Velayati, signaled that its theocracy would continue to fight for the strait, describing Tehran's control of the waterway on Thursday as "a very precious achievement."
Those rising prices pose a particular challenge to U.S. President Donald Trump and his Republican Party, which hopes to retain control of Congress in elections in November. But Washington has struggled to successfully reopen the waterway, leading to Trump reimposing the naval blockade Wednesday.
Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said Iran was prepared for a fuller military confrontation if the U.S. does not live up to the terms of the interim deal, and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened to halt all energy exports from the Middle East over the blockade.
“The export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one,” the Guard said.
Trump again insisted Iran was ready to strike a peace deal, but he did not elaborate.
“They don’t like what we’re doing, and they do want to settle. We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off,” he said Wednesday at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania.
Trump separately said on social media that Tehran made a goodwill gesture by releasing an American citizen wrongly detained in Iran since 2024. He didn’t release further details. Human rights lawyer Jared Genser released a statement identifying the detainee as his client Dena Karari, a U.S.-Iranian citizen who runs a nonprofit and was charged with espionage.
Iran did not immediately acknowledge the release and her case was not publicly known, as is sometimes the case with detentions in the Islamic Republic.
The U.S. strikes early Thursday hit around Tehran, state media reported. It also reported that American attacks targeted Semnan province, home to Iran’s ballistic missile production and space program.
Iranian media also reported strikes Thursday morning around the provinces of Hamedan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Markazi, and Sistan and Baluchistan.
On Wednesday, the U.S. resumed striking Iran during daylight, further showing the increasing tempo of the attacks. An attack on Greater Tunb Island, a strategic point in the Strait of Hormuz, targeted Iranian defense and missile sites, Central Command said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said it opened fire on the Curacao-flagged oil tanker Belma sailing toward Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. After the ship “ignored multiple warnings,” a U.S. aircraft disabled the merchant vessel by firing a missile into the ship’s smokestack.
Another American strike Wednesday targeted a barracks for Iran’s 388th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which operates tanks and armored vehicles, in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iranian state television reported. The report said Americans fired at least 13 missiles in the attack and the seven dead included conscripts and career soldiers. A number of troops were wounded.
Iran retaliated Thursday with missile and drone attacks on Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, authorities in those countries home to U.S. forces said. There was no immediate acknowledgment of damage or casualties from the attacks.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi condemned an overnight drone attack on the city of Irbil in Iraq’s semiautonomous northern Kurdish region. The drone, which authorities said had been intercepted, came during his trip to the U.S. in which he said Iraq would work to disarm non-state armed groups, including those backed by Iran.
The latest round of fighting is focused on the Strait of Hormuz. How to reopen the strait has bedeviled the U.S. since Iran choked it off in the early days of the war.
During the interim deal, some ships began moving through the passage using a route near Oman overseen by the U.S. military that is outside Tehran’s control.
In recent days, Iran attacked ships using that route and back-and-forth attacks ensued. The U.S. has threatened to reopen the strait by force, but experts say that would require a much bigger armada if not tens of thousands of ground troops. Imposing the blockade is another way to put pressure on Iran.
But in the meantime, oil prices are rising. The price for Brent crude oil, the international standard, traded above $85 a barrel on Thursday, more than 15% higher than the price before the war, but still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the conflict.
A billboard depicting U.S. President Donald Trump lying on what appears to be a coffin and bearing anti-Trump messages, including the phrase "We Kill Trump," is seen at Islamic Revolution Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Three boys play in the shallow waters of the Strait of Hormuz, as a plume of smoke rises from an explosion in the background, off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, July 13, 2026. (Razieh Poudat/ISNA via AP)
