Rural Land Market Insights Report 2026

3. Industry reports

Each year, industry reports from larger agencies are analysed as an additional source of gauging market sentiment. This year fewer industry reports were published than in previous years and in some cases the reports covered the UK land market as a whole rather than providing detail on Scotland.

Each year industry reports and updates from the larger agencies operating in Scotland are collected and analysed for key insights. This year fewer of these were published during the time of research, but five articles were included. No reports on Estates were published (Savills did publish a report on residential properties over £1m, but it contained no insights into Estate sales trends), therefore the analysis focuses on farmland (two reports) and forestry (three reports).

3.1 Farmland

Strutt & Parker were the only Agency to produce a farmland report specific to Scotland (2026). Demand for farmland was perceived to be lower “than in 2024 and below the five year average.” (p.1) and that “supply dropped below the five-year average in all regions, apart from the Lothians and West.” (p.1). Regarding buyers, “farmers remain the predominant buyer of farmland, with reduced levels of demand from forestry and natural capital investors.” (p.1).

External factors were seen to be affecting the market, particularly “the cumulative impact of a number of policy changes” (p.2). Motivations to sell farmland were primarily “retirement [which] remains the most common … and is often combined with succession planning considerations. Concerns around taxation and agricultural policy continue to influence decision making” (p.4)

In Savills’ UK-wide analysis (2026) an additional interesting insight was that “there was especially strong interest from livestock farmers seeking to move to southern Scotland, with several buyers coming from Yorkshire and the Midlands” (p.3).

3.2 Forestry

Three forestry reports were published – John Clegg and Strutt & Parker’s ‘Forest Market Review’ (2026), Goldcrest and Tilhill’s ‘The UK Forestry Market Report 2025’ (2026), and Savill’s ‘Spotlight: The Forestry Market’ (2026).

All three publications recognise that two largescale purchases have skewed the entire market and made statistical analysis difficult - Goldcrest and Tilhill suggested that “excluding both, the market is virtually flat, up by just 3%” and continued to suggest that the largest of these two sales may “never be equalled [again], given Scotland’s new Land Reform [Act]”, which may result in the “break up the sale of large estates.” (p.4).

A strong theme across all the reports was that “investors were being cautious at best, seriously worried at worst” (John Clegg and Strutt & Parker, 2026. p.3) whilst they were “looking for a trigger that never materialised.” (Savills, 2026. p.2)

Scotland continued to dominate the market, with “95% of the commercial forestry hectares sold across the UK” (Savills, 2026. p.4). However, overall supply was seen to be “below the five- and ten-year averages” (John Clegg and Strutt & Parker, 2026. p.1) with “continuing signs of demand weakening” (ibid, p.1). Savills’ suggest that 21% of UK sales occurred off-market, “below the 10-year average of 25%, and the lowest proportion since 2019.” (2026, p.4)

Regarding bare land suitable for planting:

“Transactions are scarce relative to recent years but are now constrained more by demand than supply” (Goldcrest and Tilhill, 2026. p.5)

“Planting land is still changing hands, but at lower prices and lower volumes than when the market peaked in 2021/2022. The ever increasing challenges in getting approval, combined with mixed signals from the national governments on their commitment to climate change targets, have hit investor confidence.” (John Clegg and Strutt & Parker, 2026. p.3)

One interesting and emerging theme is that there was “a shift in the age of forests coming to the market” (Goldcrest and Tilhill, 2026. p.6), with younger forests or those recently restocked being more common than previously.

John Clegg and Strutt & Parker made a comment on woodland coming to the market with carbon credits associated to the land:

“A few woods are coming to the market with carbon credits, but too few to discern many trends. What we can see is that where there is a productive conifer driver behind the carbon claim, prices are much higher than a native broadleaves scheme with little value beyond the carbon.” (p.3)

Thoughts were also provided about the current and future prices of Pending Issuance Units which “rose 10.8% year-on-year in 2024 to £26.85 and, when the Woodland Carbon Code (WCC) releases its pricing data for 2025 early next year, we expect prices to have remained firm” (Goldcrest and Tilhill, 2026. p.10)