The North West has only 1.3 years' worth of Grade A industrial space left, with just five units of more than 300K SF available after a year in which the region's big-box take-up soared by 63%.

According to the latest Savills Big Shed Briefing, based on the long-term average take-up of quality space, the supply in the North West will last less than 18 months. That is in spite of the fact that Grade A stock now accounts for 42% of all vacant units, up from 30% a year ago.

In 2018, take-up of industrial units of more than 100K SF reached 4.58M SF across 23 separate transactions, representing a 63% rise on 2017 and a 26% increase on the long-term average, resulting in a record year for the region.

Take-up was dominated by smaller size bands of 100K to 200K SF which accounted for 70% of the market deal count.

Savills said that there are currently seven units being developed totalling 1.55M SF.

Despite current underlying uncertainty the outlook for the year ahead is positive, and take-up for 2019 is expected to exceed the long term average of 3.65M SF.