Businesses Looking Up, Not Out

Warehouse and manufacturing space is getting scarce, expensive and slower to deliver. Are mezzanines and partitions a way to expand without moving?

The Midlands has been particularly badly hit.

New development is cooling, high-quality availability remains tight and prime rents are still moving upwards. The latest industrial and logistics research underlines how quickly the market has tightened. Colliers reported that the Midlands accounted for 61% of UK industrial and logistics take-up in the first half of 2026, while availability in the East Midlands fell by 20% over the same period. In the West Midlands, vacancy dropped to 4.7%, its lowest level since late 2023. Speculative warehouse completions are also heading for their lowest annual total since 2018.

Knight Frank’s Midlands research tells a similar story on cost. Prime industrial rents in Birmingham have risen 4.2% year on year to £12.50 per square foot for units over 50,000sq.ft, with Grade A vacancy now at 3.2%. For businesses already feeling the pinch, relocating can look like the obvious next step. In practice, it is often slower, more expensive and more disruptive than it first appears.

Taking too long

Finding a suitable unit, negotiating a lease, fitting it out and moving operations can take months. Rents are higher. Dilapidations, deposits and downtime all add cost. For many manufacturers and distributors, the bigger building arrives too late and at a price that puts further pressure on the business.

Uncontrolled space

According to JRC Industrials, a lot of that pressure is being misdiagnosed. The feeling that a site has been outgrown is often not a shortage of square footage at all. It is uncontrolled space: mixed traffic sharing the same floor, processes overlapping, offices sitting in the middle of operations and stock spreading into every available corner.

When people, vehicles, production and storage all occupy the same uncontrolled environment, the building starts to feel smaller than it is. Flow breaks down. Safety becomes harder to manage. Productivity drops. The instinct is to look outwards for a larger unit, when the more immediate opportunity is to take back control of the space already in use.

Partitioning and mezzanine floors

JRC Industrials says that is where partitioning and mezzanine floors come in. Rather than taking a bigger building, JRC Industrials designs, manufactures and installs systems that turn an existing warehouse or factory into a controlled environment by separating processes, lifting storage and offices off the operational floor and giving the business room to flow.

Steel partitioning can create self-contained storage areas, offices within the warehouse, production cells and designated safety zones. Mesh, single skin and double skin systems allow businesses to divide space according to how the operation actually works, rather than how the empty shell was originally laid out.

Mezzanine floors take that thinking upwards. By using unused height, a mezzanine can add storage, picking areas, packing lines or office space without increasing the building’s footprint. Combined with partitioning, it creates a clearer split between people, product and process.

Building working harder

Josh Cartwright, Director of JRC Industrials, said: “Businesses don’t always need to look for larger premises when they need more capacity. Often, the answer is to make better use of the existing space.

Ultimately, it’s about making a building work harder for the business. By maximising available space while creating safer, more efficient working environments, businesses can increase capacity and productivity without necessarily having to take on larger premises.”

Picture: As warehouse and manufacturing space supply tightens, businesses are looking up at mezzanine floors.

www.jrcindustrials.com