28 January 2026 
Richard Ralph, Projects and Engagement Officer
Welcome to the new AUDE Estates Management Report 2025 (EMR). As in past years we analyse and report on the state of play in university estates for the previous academic year, meaning that we consider data from the year 23/24 in this report.
Three outputs are available for AUDE members today.
In a report as full of concrete data as this one is, it feels counter-intuitive that we should start with anecdotal information. Nevertheless we do so. The question has never been formally asked, that leads us to that anecdotal information. So let’s pose it.
In quiet and private conversations we might ask directors of estates at UK universities to estimate how much under-utilised space they feel they have at their university.
And anecdotally, their estimates range from around 10% to around 40 %.
It’s a huge amount. And it translates directly into spend that is difficult to justify, at a time of financial constraint. That much spent on heating and energy, unjustifiably. That much spent on maintenance, cleaning, and security, unjustifiably. As property operational costs have risen sharply in recent years, with huge rises in energy accompanied by rises in staffing costs, insurance costs, and similar rises in many more categories, universities are sitting on simply extraordinary amounts of space that is not used in anything like an economically viable way. It is for AUDE and AUDE members to help steer our universities to a stronger position.
In this year’s Estates Management Report we try to say this more clearly than we ever have done.
Not every university needs to shrink their footprint. But the entire Higher Education sector as a whole does. Some will choose to dispose of built assets, though as our commentary in this year’s report suggests, there can be substantial and unpalatable upfront capital expenditure needed before being able to realise the value of the buildings in question: they aren’t always what the market most wants. Others will find ways to make buildings available for rental, or bring in industry for an entrepreneurial partnership use. Others will do nothing, though from AUDE’s point of view, that choice is difficult to defend. Often the problem we face in having realistic conversations about the over-provision of space is nothing to do with estates as such – it is to do with culture, with territorial ‘ownership’ of space, or with the way we timetable. There is simply a mismatch in many universities between the provision of space and the economic operating plans of the university at a time of financial constraint. The director of estates cannot solve this issue on her own.
As always you will find many ways to use the data found within the EMR – benchmarking against your own trends and those of other peer universities, for instance. This report is one of the key ways for estates directors to arm themselves with the facts about estates performance in ways that can be influential to all decision-makers in their universities. As such, and as always, it repays careful study.
We would like to thank the many contributors to this report for all their hard work in its preparation. In the coming weeks we will be sharing new resources to help you use the EMR to its fullest.
