Bruntwood SciTech Maintains Strong Momentum Welcoming 400 New Customers as Occupational Market Thrives

UK’s largest dedicated property platform serving the growth of the nation’s innovation, tech and science sectors releases annual accounts for year ending September 30, 2025.

Bruntwood SciTech, a joint venture between Bruntwood, L&G and Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF), has demonstrated resilient operational performance in the year ending September 30, 2025, with continued investment and a thriving occupational market driving positive momentum.

The company maintained its strong occupational activity from the previous year, recording a record level of new lettings, totalling 804,000 sq ft. Bruntwood SciTech welcomed nearly 400 new customers across its innovation hubs, alongside a 5% increase in customer retention at lease expiry/break, which sat at 70% for the year. 

The quality of Bruntwood SciTech’s workspace offering was reflected in the significance of some of the new customers that joined the portfolio. This was particularly notable at No.3 Circle Square in Manchester, which welcomed Autotrader, Havas and PUMA, which relocated its UK headquarters from London. Meanwhile, law firm Gunnercooke took space at both Pall Mall in Manchester and West Village in Leeds, signifying the strength of the Bruntwood SciTech offer across the UK’s regions, while Convatec committed to Citylabs 4.0 and Sedulo joined Birmingham’s Cornwall Buildings. This was supported by market-leading national and independent retailers including Bar Shrimp, Posie, Cut & Craft and Blank Street Coffee also taking up space across the portfolio, further supporting Bruntwood SciTech’s mission to create thriving cities.  

This letting activity was underpinned by Bruntwood SciTech’s investment of £156 million in developments and refurbishments totalling 526,000 sq ft across its 11 campus locations and 31 city centre innovation hubs throughout the year, growing its portfolio value to £1.6 billion in gross assets (2023: £1.5 billion).  

The company reported a loss before taxation of £69.7 million, representing a significant improvement from the previous year's £163.4 million loss. This year’s losses are largely a reflection of market yield movements, combined with the short-term void of completed developments while letting activity went through, with the majority of the year’s lettings achieved in the final quarter of the year. The impact of this, plus strong rental growth and stabilising market yields, mean that the business is expecting to return to strong profitability in 2026.

Excluding market yield movements, and the accounting requirement to write-down completed developments to day one value before letting activity took place, Bruntwood SciTech notes that valuation movements driven by its own operational activities were significantly positive, underscoring the quality of its asset management and letting success.

Commenting on the results, Bruntwood SciTech CEO Chris Oglesby said: "The last year has seen substantial continued investment across our regional innovation hubs, with multiple major schemes progressing simultaneously. Our approach remains committed to long-term, patient capital investment into the UK's cities and regions, where we believe there is significant untapped opportunity for growth - provided the right infrastructure is in place to support it.

"However, it has undoubtedly been a challenging year for us and for the wider sector, with persistent headwinds including continued changes to market valuations affecting portfolios across the industry. But delivering long-term growth requires conviction, and we have demonstrated that by continuing to bring forward market-leading lab and workspace schemes exactly where they are needed. Our lettings performance has been exceptionally strong, proving this was the right strategy, but with many of our developments completing later in our financial year, the benefit from subsequent leasing income will flow through into next year's results. Despite these market conditions, we have achieved a substantial reduction in our losses and we are well positioned to return to profitability in the next financial year.”

Looking ahead, Bruntwood SciTech has plans to deliver its £210 million development pipeline, that will deliver 345,000 sq ft of market-leading lab and workspace in Manchester, alongside a UK-wide pipeline of refurbishments across 300,000 sq ft of existing space, totalling £82 million. 

Since year end, the £30 million transformation of Grade II listed Pall Mall in Manchester city centre has already completed, delivering 120,000 sq ft of net zero carbon innovation space, alongside a new public piazza, while plans are already underway at Manchester One to provide additional workspace and amenity.