We have considered latent demand, together with that driven by the demographic ‘bulge’ towards the end of the 2020s Defining a balanced market From this analysis, we derived a ‘target’ ratio of 1.9 : 1 students per bed as representative of a relatively balanced market, which is neither under- or over-supplied. Then, to consider under-supply in the UK as a whole, we looked at the student-to-bed ratio for each market (based on 2024/25 student data), and assumed that: • cities whose ratio is lower than 1.9 : 1 do not need any more PBSA beds; and • cities whose ratio is above 1.9 : 1 could bear further development that reduces their ratio to 1.9 : 1. In this exercise we are only considering the need for new additional beds to address under-supply, and not as replacements for poor-quality beds, which we considered separately in Section 2. Demand in 2025/26 First, we considered how many beds are required purely for latent demand, i.e. ignoring forecast growth. We detail our methodology in Note iv in the Appendix. In order to ensure that no student housing market in the UK had a student-to-bed ratio greater than 1.9 : 1, a total of c. 50,500 net additional beds would be required. This would increase the total UK stock from c. 751,700 to c. 802,300. This figure of 50,500 includes all beds in the development pipeline, either under construction or at an earlier stage of planning permission. This is a figure based on 2024/25 demand, and so assumes that a magic wand can be used to build these overnight, and that the wand also has enough power to magic away any viability issues, as there may not be 50,500 students waiting in the wings to take up PBSA offered at the kind of rents that are currently required for new build. We consider viability challenges later in this Section. Study room at Unite Students’ Hayloft Point, London Page 24 | SFG | Meeting demand for modernised university-owned accommodation