2. Methodology
The methodology for this research has remained the same since the second report (see Merrell et al, 2023 for a full explanation). This is qualitative research which complements the quantitative research the Commission conducts in-house on the Scottish land market (the 2020-2023 report available here, the 2020-2024 report available here).
The research involves conducting semi-structured interviews with land agents or valuers. This year, 15 land agents were interviewed between November 2025 and February 2026. One goal is to have a good balance of agencies that cover national or regional markets, as well as agents who have a range of expertise, some of whom specialise in different sectors (farm, forestry, estate, residential or natural capital) whilst others consider themselves generalists. Retention of participants from previous years is sought to provide a longitudinal perspective. This is a useful strategy as rapport and trust is built between researcher and agent and the conversation can be returned to without agents having to explain trends or factors from previous years. It is also important to introduce new perspectives, so each year new agents (or who have participated previously, but not every year) are also recruited. For some of the larger agencies, a different agent to previous years participated.
All interviews were conducted online using Microsoft Teams. The interviews lasted roughly 45 minutes to 1 hour. The semi-structured interviews (see Appendix 3) followed key questions but provided flexibility to explore different or unexpected avenues of enquiry as they emerged – these remained largely the same as previous years, but with slight amendments.
For the analysis, interview transcripts were anonymised and analysed thematically. A NVivo1 coding framework (see Appendix 2) was developed to enhance the qualitative analysis. This framework has remained the same for three years. This enabled results to be analysed thematically (mainly by land sector, but also themes such as ‘future trends’, ‘natural capital’ or ‘types of buyers’) all of which have sections dedicated to them in the findings.
As in previous years, a desk-based analysis of industry reports from the largest agencies in Scotland was conducted, complementing the interviews and providing a means of triangulating findings.
1 A qualitative data analysis software package (https://support.qsrinternational.com/)
