Occupancy rates have increased across Europe’s self-storage market according to JLL’s European Self Storage Annual Survey in conjunction with the Federation of European Self Storage Associations (FEDESSA).

The survey showed that average occupancy is 79% with occupancy rates increasing from 79.2% in February to 79.9% in June 2020.

The average occupancy in June increased to 80% and more than half of the facilities surveyed had over 85% occupancy, with a third sitting at 85%-90% capacity.

Over a third of the facilities across Europe took part in the survey, which is in its ninth year.

Transactions were in line with last year, with more than €250m of transactions in the self-storage market in the past 12 months.

There has been a decrease of 1% in the average rent per square metre per year between February and June 2020, while staff per facility has dropped from 1.8 full time employees to 1.4 in 2020.

Ollie Saunders, lead director of self-storage Europe at JLL, said: “The flexibility of self-storage has meant that it can adapt to changing macro-economic circumstances, as it did in the global financial crisis.”

Rennie Schafer, chief executive officer at FEDESSA, said: “This has been a turbulent time for the property sector but it’s testament to self-storage that it’s remained resilient throughout the uncertainty.”