The Scotland self-storage market was recently featured in a BBC report chronicling the business. The report highlights the types of consumers who use storage and the state of the industry in the region, and compares its progress to the U.K. market as a whole. Though the Scottish market didn’t emerge until the 1990s, about a decade behind other parts of the United Kingdom, the local industry is showing signs of growth behind efforts of independent operators, according to the source.

"In Scotland we don't have much dominance by the major chains at all. In fact, the three major operators in the U.K. only have a handful of sites there, so the Scottish market is very much full of independent operators,” Rennie Schafer, chief executive of the Self Storage Association of the United Kingdom (SSA-UK), told the BBC. “I can certainly see significant growth over the next 10 years. Particularly in Scotland, more people will use it as more people become aware of the product.”

Consumer recognition is still a challenge across the U.K as a whole, the source reported. While 90 percent of the public have heard of self-storage, just 30 percent understand how it works, according to the 2016 annual survey published by the SSA-UK. Of those surveyed, 66 percent couldn’t name a single self-storage brand.

Growth in Scotland is being driven by smaller operators and primarily in urban areas. "The Scottish market was not as developed as the south of England, so growth was not as fast there,” Schafer explained. "Scotland is more sparsely populated, and more densely populated areas help to bring more visibility to the product.”

The BBC report also highlights growth from business tenants, economic factors affecting the market and consumer motivations for renting self-storage.

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