IN Brief:
- Only 48.1% of Dutch logistics stock sits in postcode areas with fibre availability, compared with 74.9% of office stock.
- Around 67.6% of logistics properties are located in areas affected by electricity grid congestion.
- Wider WiredScore research identifies substantial gaps between occupier expectations and existing buildings for internet resilience and technological flexibility.
Savills and WiredScore have identified a widening digital infrastructure gap across Dutch logistics property, with fewer than half of warehouse assets located in postcode areas where fibre connectivity is available.
The research found that 48.1% of Dutch logistics stock is located in an area with fibre access, compared with 74.9% of office stock. At the same time, around 67.6% of logistics properties sit in areas affected by electricity grid congestion, creating a second infrastructure constraint for occupiers planning more automated and energy-intensive operations.
The figures form part of research into technological readiness in logistics real estate, examining connectivity, resilience, electrical capacity, and the flexibility of buildings to support changing digital systems. The central issue is that a warehouse can meet conventional property requirements while still being poorly prepared for the operating technology expected inside it.
Modern distribution centres increasingly depend on cloud-based warehouse management systems, handheld and wearable devices, machine vision, automated storage, mobile robots, sortation, security systems, and real time inventory data. Some equipment can continue operating through temporary connectivity loss, but the larger the digital estate becomes, the harder it is to treat data infrastructure as a secondary building service.
WiredScore’s wider analysis of 2.3 million square metres of European industrial and logistics space points to the same problem. The average assessed building falls 40 percentage points short of occupier expectations for internet resilience and 49 points short for technological flexibility.
Technological flexibility concerns the building’s ability to accommodate systems that may not have existed when it was constructed. Cabling routes, communications rooms, network redundancy, sensor infrastructure, equipment locations, and access to building data can all determine whether technology can be added without significant remedial work.
That matters because warehouse technology rarely remains static across a lease. An occupier may begin with conventional racking and handheld scanning, then add automated picking, robotics, charging infrastructure, or more advanced monitoring several years later. A building that cannot accommodate those changes cheaply can become operationally restrictive long before its basic structure is obsolete.
Electricity creates a similar issue. Automation itself is only one source of demand, alongside lighting, heating, refrigeration, vehicle charging, conveyors, and other building services. Where the local grid is congested, securing a larger connection can become a longer and less predictable exercise than installing the equipment that requires it.
That timing risk affects property decisions directly. A building may be physically available yet still be unsuitable for a planned operation if the occupier cannot obtain enough electrical capacity or resilient connectivity within the required commissioning schedule.
The cost then spreads beyond utilities. Delayed occupation can affect customer contracts, labour recruitment, automation installation, inventory transfers, and the closure of an existing site. A lower headline rent offers limited compensation if the building cannot support the operation on the date it is needed.
For landlords, the research broadens the definition of property quality. Loading doors, floor strength, clear height, yard depth, and motorway access remain fundamental, but they increasingly sit alongside fibre, power, resilience, and access to building performance data.
The change resembles the way environmental performance moved into mainstream logistics property assessment. Energy efficiency was once treated largely as a sustainability differentiator; regulation, operating costs, and customer expectations have made it a routine part of due diligence. Digital readiness is moving in the same direction because it increasingly influences whether the building can support the occupier’s business model.
The Dutch market is particularly exposed because large logistics clusters have developed around transport corridors where electricity networks are also under pressure. That creates competition for grid capacity between warehouses, industrial users, residential development, and wider electrification.
Occupiers can mitigate some constraints through on-site generation, battery storage, load management, or revised charging schedules, but those measures do not eliminate the importance of the underlying connection. Nor can they solve weak external fibre availability without additional communications infrastructure.
The result is a closer relationship between technology procurement and property procurement. A company choosing a warehouse for an automated operation needs to assess the building’s communications and electrical infrastructure before finalising the automation specification, rather than discovering after lease signature that the intended systems exceed what the site can support.
For owners, failure to address those weaknesses could become a valuation issue. A warehouse with stronger connectivity, better power access, and more adaptable digital infrastructure may attract a wider range of occupiers and require less tenant capital expenditure than a physically similar building nearby.
That does not mean every existing logistics property requires immediate redevelopment. The appropriate level of digital infrastructure depends on the operation, and a conventional storage building does not need the same specification as a highly automated fulfilment centre.
The risk lies in assuming that the physical shell alone determines long-term usefulness. As more occupiers build operations around data, automation, and electrification, the invisible infrastructure running into and through the building becomes part of the warehouse specification itself.
The Dutch figures make that mismatch difficult to dismiss. Less than half of logistics stock has local fibre availability, while more than two thirds sits in grid-congested areas. For increasingly digital warehouse operations, location now has to describe access to electrons and data as well as roads.
