Unite cuts the rent of some student accommodation, including in Nottingham and Sheffield

Unite Students – the biggest provider of student accommodation in the UK – cut rent on rooms in order to fill them for 2026.

Unite struggled to find enough students to sign up for rooms in particular university towns. So, the accommodation provider chose to cut prices in certain halls, in the hope of encouraging more students to pick them.

After reducing rents in Nottingham, Unite’s income from halls there increased by 15 per cent.

Unite also offered more rooms with a 44-week contract instead of a 51-week contract, so students wouldn’t have to pay as much for it.

Rents were reduced in Leicester and Sheffield. Unite also adjusted the price options for rooms in Bristol, and in the Burnet Court halls in Edinburgh.

Unite’s average annual rents fell by 0.3 per cent. However, it did manage to fill up 95.6 per cent of rooms for the 2026/2027 academic year. So, Unite did end up achieving 0.6 per cent like-for-like income growth for the 2026/2027 year.

Unite also owns Hello Student, which offers “all-inclusive” and “hassle-free” uni accommodation. Unite says it’s made “targeted price reductions to drive income” for Hello Student rooms. 92 per cent of rooms in Hello Student properties have now been claimed for the 2026/2027 academic year, which is an improvement on the 87 per cent occupancy rate for the 2025/2026 academic year.

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A post shared by Hello Student | Student Accommodation (@_hellostudent)

Unite’s strategy is to focus on their “alignment to the UK’s strongest universities through disposals and reinvestment, leading to a more focused, higher-quality future portfolio”. As of 30th September, Unite has 70,500 beds. Unite aims to whittle this down to about 55,000 to 60,000 beds in the areas where its halls are more popular.

The CEO of Unite, Joe Lister, said: “We have delivered reservations in line with our expectations as student demand and university behaviour evolved through this sales cycle.”

6.1 per cent fewer international students studied at UK higher education institutes during the 2024/2025 academic year than the year before. It’s also become more normal for UK students to live with their families and commute to university, instead of staying in halls near campus. According to UCAS, in 2025 89,510 18-year-olds put on their accepted applications that they intended to live at home while studying. That’s up from 51,795 in 2015.

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