More than 70m sq ft of warehouses were leased or sold last year, more than double the “normal” take-up.

The latest figures from Cushman & Wakefield confirm trends already apparent in the market, that the boom in online shopping during the pandemic has put more pressure on a market where demand far outstrips supply.

It is also far ahead of even the previous record, set in 2020, of 53m sq ft. In another record, about £17bn of logistics deals were transacted in 2021.

Developers built 13.7m sq ft of space speculatively in 2021, almost double the 7.3m sq ft of speculative development the year before.