Insights Hub

Savills was founded in the UK in 1855. Today, it is an internationally-renowned property agency with offices all over the world. Savills provides a broad range of services including expert investment advice, valuations, property management and detailed research and analysis across the property market.

Savills has been working with the Local Data Company since 2019, blending LDC’s retail and leisure location data with other datasets to support their clients with strategic activities ranging from asset management and investment strategy to their own research and insights content.

Understanding the retail ecosystem

Having a forensic view of the entire market is critical for Savills, as they work extensively across the investment space, which requires detailed, micro-level data on the whole country. This in-depth intelligence also supports local and district centre development projects, by helping to build a picture of retail need in a location and identify suitable retail provision. The ability to examine data on locations of all sizes is integral to understanding the retail ecosystem as a whole— taking a more holistic view of the market beyond just the top prime locations helps to set Savills apart as an industry leader.

Alongside this, tracking macro-level trends, including growing and declining retail categories, vacancy rates and the performance of different asset classes, is a critical component of strategic work, for example as part of acquisition strategy.

Being able to look ahead to future trends is vital for understanding vacancy and how to address it: the LDC database includes data on 430,000 independent businesses, currently a key consideration in location strategy following their record performance in recent years.

Freedom and flexibility

Savills uses LDC data alongside other datasets to build its “data universe”— an abundant combined dataset, ready for the next project, whatever that may be. This data is available for Savills’ teams, including its own retail and leisure analysts, to use in exactly the way they want.

Our dataset is well-suited to clients who already have an in-house analyst team: spanning 10 years of retail and leisure location data on over 700,000 units across GB, it is versatile and wide-ranging enough to be integrated smoothly with existing processes. Our regular updates and quality-checking procedures ensure currency and accuracy, so you can trust the data you receive.

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“I think [the dataset is] fantastic— we can do all sorts of things that we couldn’t do before…. I know confidently that I am describing the UK as a whole and not just the top 100 centres. It’s very easy to be polarised by the prime locations that get the most airspace, but real spaces are those spaces that support people and everyday need. That particularly came up with COVID- understanding what’s happening in a small location can be just as important as understanding a regional mall.”

- Tom Whittington, Director - Retail Research at Savills

To talk about how LDC's data and insight products can support your business objectives, email the team at team@localdatacompany.com.