New report on Rural Land Markets
Last week was the Royal Highland Show and it was my first
time attending the event (despite going to countless county shows in my younger
days). It was a great experience to wander the different tents, browse Scottish
produced goods, meet up with colleagues and, of course, have interesting
conversations with lots of new people.
However, the main reason I was there was to launch the
fourth edition of the Rural Land Market Insight (2025) report alongside the Scottish Land Commission. Now
in its fourth edition, the 2025 report draws on interviews with land agents
across Scotland to uncover the key trends influencing land sales and investment
decisions in 2024.
The report reveals how economic and political uncertainty
have reshaped rural land market activity over the past year. While farmland
sales remained steady, the report finds that demand in key sectors such as
commercial forestry and natural capital investment continued to fall, largely
due to economic uncertainty and market disruption.
The report also highlights:
Forestry: Lower timber prices and wider caution in
the sector continued to suppress demand, with ripple effects across the market.
Natural capital: Interest in carbon and environmental
projects waned further, with land in existing schemes often seen as overpriced.
Farmland: Arable land continued to attract reliable
demand, with some dairy farmers taking advantage of less competition from
forestry buyers.
Estates: A split is emerging between large-scale
estates suited to environmental use and smaller amenity estates, with the
latter more sought after.
Renewables: Developers were increasingly active in
pursuing land for wind, solar, battery storage, and compensatory environmental
schemes.
To celebrate the launch of the event we held an industry
panel with a range of experts in different fields. Chaired by LandCommissioner Debs Roberts (James Hutton Institute), the panel consisted of Sarah Longlands (CLES), DebbieMacKay (Savills), Jason Beedell (Strutt and Parker) and Steven Thomson (SRUC).
The conversation included topics around current trends in the market and land
values, the potential effects of Inheritance Tax changes, natural capital
markets, barriers facing housing developments and new entrants into farming.
During discussions and questions from the audience, tax
levers to generate desired public outcomes (including for communities, new
entrants, young farmers) and other incentives (‘carrots’) were raised and
discussed amongst the panel. This made for an interesting conversation with
plenty of breadth which goes to demonstrate how land and land markets play such
a central role in many other aspects of land use, environmental and community
policies.
The full report is available here, and previous editions in the series are also available on the Scottish Land Commission’s resources and report repository. Head of Policy at the Commission, James MacKessack-Leitch, has also authored an accompanying policy briefing on the report, available here.