How do industrial property agents in the UK find occupiers?

Where do UK industrial occupier requirements come from?

Most named requirements reach a letting agent through other agents. Acquiring agents acting for occupiers circulate requirement lists by email and post them on EG and the major portals, setting out size, eaves height, yard, loading, power and location. Letting agents keep a running list of live requirements and match new instructions against it, and joint instructions spread each unit across two firms' networks.

Beyond agent networks, requirements come from existing tenants on the estate who want to expand, landlords who know their own tenants' plans, occupier advisers working for larger companies, and local authority inward investment teams handling businesses relocating into an area.

The limit of a requirement list is that it only contains occupiers who have already decided to move and appointed someone. By the time a requirement is circulated, every agent with suitable space is competing for it.

Which portals and data do UK industrial agents use?

For marketing, Rightmove Commercial and LoopNet, which CoStar formed from Realla in 2022, carry most UK industrial availability, alongside EG Propertylink and Zoopla's commercial listings. Agents also rely on their own websites, marketing particulars and boards on the unit, which still produce enquiries from local businesses driving past.

For data, CoStar covers availability, lease comps, building records and tenants across the UK market, and EG, formerly EGi, covers deals, requirements and market news. NimbusMaps brings together ownership, planning, availability and occupier data on a map for site sourcing. HM Land Registry shows who owns each title, and many councils publish lists of business ratepayers for their area.

These sources describe the market well. What they rarely show is which businesses on the next estate are about to outgrow their unit.

How do agents use Companies House to find occupiers?

Companies House is free and covers every UK limited company. Agents use it to check the directors of a business, its filed accounts, any charges registered against it and changes in control. Rising turnover or headcount in the accounts, a new charge in favour of a lender, or a new parent company can all point to a business that will need different space.

Searching by SIC code finds companies in a given trade, such as warehousing, freight, food production or metal fabrication. The catch is that the registered office is often an accountant's address rather than the unit the business operates from, so a Companies House search alone does not tell you who is on which estate. It works best as a check on businesses you have already found on the ground.

Why do most industrial lettings come from occupiers already nearby?

Industrial occupiers are tied to their location by their workforce, their customers and their access to the motorway network, so a business that outgrows its unit usually moves within the same town or along the same corridor. On multi-let estates, many lettings go to businesses stepping up from a smaller unit nearby.

That makes the businesses within a short drive of a vacant shed the best prospects for it, and most of them have not registered a requirement. Lease events add to this: a tenant approaching a break clause or expiry on a unit that no longer suits it is weighing its options well before it appoints an agent.

This is why good industrial agents still canvass estates in person and by letter. It is slow, but it reaches occupiers before the requirement circulates and the competition starts.

How can UK agents canvass for occupiers faster?

Scayled takes on the groundwork that canvassing used to need. A Listing Scan returns every business around a unit with the person who decides at each and a drafted email, which is the neighbour strategy done in an afternoon rather than a week on foot. A Target Scan then finds businesses anywhere in the UK whose operations fit the unit's size, use and type, useful for sheds that could draw an occupier from outside the area, and every occupier found is tracked for hiring, contract wins, new sites, funding and lease events on a map and a feed.

Everything scanned, revealed and emailed stays in the agent's own Occupier Database, and emails go from the agent's own inbox. Under PECR, emailing limited companies and LLPs is allowed as long as you identify yourself and offer a simple opt out, while sole traders and some partnerships are treated as individuals, so check the type of business before writing.

Before adding it to an agency's industrial software stack, run it on a live instruction: Scayled is free for 3 days at /start with 4 scans included. Pro is the one-agent plan, and the Team Plan and Market Plan let a group of agents share one pot at a per-broker discount; /pricing shows current prices.

What does a weekly occupier routine look like for a UK industrial agent?

Monday, match new instructions against live requirements and send the good fits to acquiring agents. Tuesday and Wednesday, work the occupiers around each vacant unit: the neighbours, the businesses on nearby estates and the ones further out whose operations fit. Thursday, follow up and book viewings. Friday, review which occupiers in your patch are showing signs of change and plan next week's calls.

Keep every conversation logged against the business, not just the unit. An occupier that does not fit this shed may fit the next one, and the agent who has been talking to them for a year is the one they call when the time comes.