Accommodation for Students in 2021

The student accommodation market has proven to be very resilient in 2021. While Covid continued to have an impact, either by limiting on campus interactions or making international travel difficult, many students were determined to continue as best they could.

Record year

As a result, www.accommodationforstudents.com achieved record numbers of enquiries from students and website visitors. This partly results from the work the AFS team have done to continually improve the website, optimising the experience for both students and advertisers.

It also reflects strong demand for a University education, with record numbers accepting a place in 2020, followed by another strong year for University recruitment in 2021. As more students enter Higher Education, demand for a place to live increases.

Enquiries increase across the board

With more UK students entering higher education this has increased the level of demand for shared housing. It was noteworthy that in the early part of the year the major growth in enquiries came for this type of accommodation. However, in the summer AFS experienced a dramatic explosion in PBSA enquiries and this continued throughout the autumn and winter.

As a result AFS has benefited from a 70% increase in enquiries – quite an achievement for a mature website, which celebrated 21 years in business this year.

Delivering value to our partners

The main positive from this is that we have been able to help even more students this year and also deliver a substantial return on investment for our customers. Even more positive news awaits as we anticipate more growth in 2020, driven by further improvements to AFS, growth in student numbers and a gradual return to stability for international students.