In our last article we discussed how space utilisation analytics inform modern estate management strategies. Today, let’s look at some challenges facing UK university estate management and how estate-wide visibility and evidence drive opportunities for the sector.
Underused and overpaying: the hidden cost of UK university estates
In the commercial offices SmartViz currently monitors, utilisation typically sits between 50% and 60%. University estates tell a different story. Office space runs at around 25% to 30% utilisation, and teaching space typically sits at just 20%, with some spaces dropping below 10%. Yet perception across the sector often runs the other way. Estate teams report that space feels scarce, and pressure to build continues even as existing buildings sit empty for most of the week.
That perception gap comes at a real cost. Energy has become the single largest driver of rising property costs in UK higher education, reaching £978 million in 2023/24 and accounting for 30.3% of the sector’s total property spend, a 14% increase year on year according to AUDE’s Higher Education Estates Management Report 2025. Add rising repairs and maintenance costs, at £919 million in 2023/24. The case for better university estate management becomes hard to ignore.
The Smart Space Forum, a community of UK university estates leaders convened by SmartViz pointed out that the sector doesn’t have a space problem. It has a visibility problem. AUDE reaches a similar conclusion from a different angle, pointing to three priorities for the sector: rightsizing, energy usage management, and timely, informed decision-making. Both point to the same underlying challenge: estate leaders can’t fix what they can’t see.
In the next part of the article, we’ll touch on what that evidence looks like in practice, and what it makes possible.
How evidence supports university estate management
Once that visibility exists, it plays out across three connected areas: where energy is wasted, where space goes unused, and how quickly estate teams can act on both.
Energy optimisation
Energy optimisation is one clear priority. AUDE argues that controlling energy consumption delivers both environmental and financial gains, and that institutions need to move past treating largely empty buildings as an acceptable overnight cost. Occupancy sensor data can highlight exactly how buildings are used and support direct action plans, rather than leaving energy control to guesswork. Instead of running systems on rigid timers, your HVAC and lighting adjust dynamically to actual room use. This targeted control directly lowers unnecessary operational energy consumption while keeping your spaces comfortable.
More about demand-based energy controls: How space utilisation analytics inform modern estate management strategies
Rightsizing
On rightsizing, AUDE suggests matching space provision to actual need, whether that’s disposing of a building or renting it to an external partner. Cardiff Metropolitan University‘s experience reflects this: occupancy and energy data led the university to avoid £5.1 million in new construction and reshape its wider masterplan, evidence that rightsizing can protect capital budgets without cutting into actual need.
Timely, informed decision-making
Timely, informed decision-making ties the other two together. AUDE’s questions cut to the heart of what effective university estate management requires nowadays: Do estate teams commit to doing something with the information they record? Are universities benchmarking space use and acting on what they find?
Data only matters if universities commit to doing something with it, whether that information is captured manually or digitally. AUDE’s report frames the challenge: the pressures on university estate management are arriving faster, the patterns are less predictable, and the cost of delay keeps rising. This isn’t about waiting for a perfect solution. It’s about making timely, informed choices that keep the system workable, even as the picture keeps shifting.
And reliable, constant trusted data helps to de-risk decision making across the estate. As Thomas Conisbee, Strategic Space Analytics & AI Lead at University of Oxford said: “SmartViz allows us to move from short-term, manual surveys to a continuous, objective view of how our spaces are actually used over time. That removes much of the subjectivity and debate, giving us a reliable evidence base to inform decisions on space and investment.”
That’s the shift university estate management is going through in 2026: not more space, but more sight of the space already there.
