Look West: How the USA and UK self storage industries compare

The US has an enormous self storage industry with about 45,000 facilities compared to the UK’s 1200. This is because self storage has been established in America for a lot longer with their national Self Storage Association having been formed in 1975.

You can get an idea of the industry’s importance when you consider that most of the 50 states each have their own self storage association, and expressed in per-person terms there are 7 square feet of storage space for each American.

This compares with almost half a square foot for each UK citizen, meaning Americans have about 14 times the self storage space per capita.  About one in ten US households rents a self storage unit.

Not only is it a much bigger industry but it is structured very differently.  As in the UK there are a few really large companies, such as Public Storage and Extra Space, but there are a vast number of smaller self store companies where the owner is also the manager and runs a single site.

There are over 27,000 facilities like this in the US which have mostly been purpose-built, representing over 90% of self storage businesses.  By contrast the purpose-built facilities in the UK are almost all operated by the large multiples such as Shurgard and Access Storage.

American storage companies also tend to charge much lower fees.  Their typical annual cost is around $10 per square foot (a little over £6.00 at today’s exchange rates) whereas the UK average charge is £20.50 – more than three times as much.

Yet despite these lower charges the US industry has vast turnover – about $22 billion in 2009 – and employs 160,000 people.

The US Self Storage Association takes advantage of the lobbying clout this brings with it to campaign over many issues, including property taxes and zoning (planning permissions). Between them, its members are thought to pay over $3 billion worth of local property taxes each year.

The UK association also works with government over some issues, including security – but it must look enviously at the political influence that the US Self Storage Association has by comparison.

Some American storage centres cater mainly for the US military and over 700,000 units are rented to its personnel, including some actually built on US bases. Often those showing military ID will get 10–30% off the standard charges as well as free use of transport and promised zero rent increases while they are serving overseas.

The US self store industry underwent something of a boom a few years ago, although growth has since slowed.  This is illustrated by the fact that the first billion square feet of storage space took 25 years to build whereas the next billion took only 8 years (1998–2005).

At its peak (2004/5) about 8,700 facilities were built, adding almost 500 million square feet of new space in one year.  This building boom is now finished and in the 2009 year fewer than 250 new facilities were opened.

By contrast the UK is at a fairly early stage in its development and has a small fraction of the space America has.

Of course, it is unlikely that the UK will get close to US levels of storage space – bearing in mind the greater wealth of the typical American and the greater amount of building space available in the US – but it looks certain that the US will continue to provide a model that UK storage companies will try to emulate.