People First Design:
People First Design:
The UK PBSA sector is at a turning point. Investment is still strong, with £2.1 billion in Q1 2026 alone, and supply keeps growing. But the way operators compete has changed. The winners aren't the cheapest, and they aren't the biggest. They're the ones students actually want to live in.
That's the message we heard in recent conversations with senior leaders at Urbanest, Homes for Students, UPP, Yugo, Fresh Property Group and Student Castle. And it has big implications for how student accommodation gets designed, furnished and maintained.
From commodity to community
A year ago, the thinking was simple: students are price-sensitive, so build affordable, fill the beds, protect the yield. The latest sector view is more nuanced.
As Anthony Mellalieu, COO of Urbanest, puts it: "The definition of value is changing in the sense that living in PBSA is now increasingly holistic and experience-driven, rather than centred around price point."
Three things are driving that shift:
- Affordability shapes choice. Kate Forester, Group MD of Homes for Students, notes that "the cost of university and the cost of living are at the forefront of student decision-making." Operators need multiple price points, not just one.
- Demographics are changing. Matt Burton, Chief Partnerships Officer at UPP, points out that domestic full-time undergraduate numbers may plateau or fall after 2030. The operators who keep occupancy will be the ones students choose to stay with.
- ESG now drives capital. Tom Rix, COO of Student Castle, says ESG is "now embedded in capital allocation decisions." Investors want proof of performance, not good intentions.
So how do operators deliver on experience, affordability and compliance at the same time?
What People First Design means
People First Design starts with one simple idea: every design decision should support the person living in the space, and think about the social and environmental impact over the whole life of the asset.
In practice, that means asking better questions:
- What does a student need to thrive here, not just exist?
- Does the space work for first years and postgrads, domestic and international students, and different price points?
- How will it perform on ESG and social value over its lifecycle, not just on opening day?
- What happens to the furniture when it's no longer needed?
Operators are already doing this well. Yugo's "Live Your Best Life" programme runs on three pillars: sustainability, professional development and community. Urbanest builds its major new developments to Passivhaus standards, because comfort, air quality and energy efficiency affect wellbeing and study. None of it works without the right spaces and furnishings behind it.
Why it matters for your P&L
Affordability through smart design
You can't cut rents across the board. You can cut the cost of delivery and operations.
Sam Scott, MD of Fresh Property Group, says the sector should offer "a broader range of price points, designing more efficient buildings, reducing operational waste and using data to optimise services."
This is where FF&E strategy becomes a real lever. Modular furniture systems let operators create different price points from the same core components, cut lead times and logistics costs, and adapt spaces quickly as the market shifts.
A £150 a week room and a £220 a week room don't need to be built differently. They need to feel different: better materials, more amenity in the shared spaces, same underlying system.
Retention through experience
The UK is still short of roughly 580,000 student beds. But students have more options than that number suggests, and they're comparing more than price. Where will I want to live? Where will I make friends? Where will I feel looked after?
Operators who treat furnishing and interior design as a finishing touch leave retention on the table. Those investing in joined-up design, flexible spaces, study areas built for focus, and shared kitchens that bring people together are seeing the benefit in occupancy and lower churn.
ESG and compliance, made practical
The Renters' Rights Act raises expectations on transparency and accountability, and investors want ESG outcomes they can measure. That takes data, and it starts with how an asset is furnished.
Plan furniture around a 10-year lifecycle, with reuse, refurbishment and responsible end-of-life built in, and you get value in four places:
- Environmental: reuse and responsible recycling keep furniture out of landfill.
- Operational: durable, repairable furniture means lower maintenance costs and predictable refresh cycles.
- Social: end-of-life furniture goes to charities, social housing and community programmes.
- Compliance: you can show auditors, boards and residents that ESG is something you do, not something you aim for.
Efficiency at scale
Matt Burton at UPP highlights the role of data: better use of operational data can improve building performance, enhance resident services and reduce energy use.
That's much easier with a lifecycle partner rather than a one-off supplier. Someone who understands the full journey (specification, delivery, occupancy, maintenance, refresh and end-of-life), looks after repairs as part of the relationship, and gets better with every asset. With traditional procurement, the supplier's job ends at handover. With a lifecycle partnership, it's just starting.
How LOFT puts it into practice
At LOFT, People First Design is where every project starts: what does this student need to thrive? Three parts of our offer bring it to life.
NESTBLOK: modular PBSA design. A reconfigurable system that lets operators create different price points and resident experiences from the same core components. It reduces specification complexity and procurement cost without compromising quality, and builds flexibility in from day one so refresh cycles are quicker and less disruptive. Affordability doesn't have to mean compromise. It means smarter design.
FLEX Living: co-living and shared space design. Student accommodation is community infrastructure as much as bedrooms. FLEX Living focuses on shared spaces that actually build community, with flexible zones for study, socialising, cooking and co-working, durable finishes for heavy use, and accessibility designed in from the start.
LOFT Renewal: our circular lifecycle commitment. Furniture is specified, maintained and recovered with end-of-life in mind, which is how we achieve 99.43% landfill diversion. Furniture that has reached the end of its time in student accommodation goes on to charities, social housing providers and community programmes through our End Furniture Poverty initiative, supporting people in genuine housing need.
Lifecycle partnership, not transactional supply
We don't see ourselves as a furniture supplier. We see ourselves as a lifecycle partner: specification shaped around your asset and cohort, delivery and installation managed as part of handover, support once residents move in, maintenance and repair, efficient refresh between cohorts, and responsible end-of-life recovery.
We've furnished over 250,000 properties across BTR, PBSA, co-living, PRS and social housing. That experience means we understand the day-to-day realities of running these buildings, not just how to design them.
The competitive advantage now
The PBSA sector isn't commoditising. It's differentiating. The operators who come out ahead will be those who can:
- Offer multiple price points without losing quality or experience.
- Show that their spaces improve resident outcomes and retention.
- Run efficiently and sustainably across the full asset lifecycle.
- Demonstrate real social value, not just environmental footprint.
Every furnishing decision is an investment in the student's experience today, the operator's efficiency tomorrow, and the wider community's access to decent housing in the years that follow.
If you're building, refurbishing or optimising PBSA, the question isn't whether you can afford to invest in experience and design. It's whether you can afford not to.
Planning a new scheme or refreshing an existing one? Get in touch with the LOFT team to talk through what People First Design could look like for your assets.
LOFT is an FF&E and interior design lifecycle partner for BTR, PBSA, co-living, PRS and social housing, with 150+ employees across Manchester, London, Hong Kong, Ningbo and Dubai. We've furnished 250,000+ properties.
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