Why most UK cabins only last 5–10 years – and what it's costing your business
- May 18
- 6 min read
There is a quiet structural problem inside the UK glamping and cabin market, and almost nobody is talking about it.
Most cabins and pods being sold in the UK today are not built to last.
That is the headline view of architect Peter Markos, who joined the latest episode of the Host Planet Podcast – powered by Hostfully – to set out why the UK's approach to cabin construction is leaving developers, farmers, and landowners holding short-lifespan assets – at exactly the moment the long-term value of their holiday let business should be growing. Catch the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple.
"A lot of Scandinavian companies, even a lot of American companies, build cabins with the view that they last a lifetime and beyond. In the UK, there seems to be a bit of a fixation on building the cheapest thing possible."
Key takeaways about UK cabins
The typical lifespan of a UK-built glamping cabin or pod is 5 to 10 years – versus 50–100+ years for a properly built timber structure.
The biggest payday in a holiday let business is the eventual sale. A heavily depreciated cabin makes the business unsaleable.
The UK problem is driven by value engineering: smaller dimensions, cheaper materials, fast-grown softwoods instead of hardwoods.
Many UK cabins fall under the 1968 Caravan Act, which means they don't have to comply with UK building regulations – and most don't.
Cabins that aren't built to building-regs standard often can't be rented in winter, losing operators four to six months of revenue every year.
The fix: smaller numbers of higher-quality units, natural hardwood materials, proper insulation, and full building-regs compliance.
The lifespan problem in a single number: 5 to 10 years
Across the UK cabin market, Peter says, the typical lifespan of an off-the-shelf glamping pod or cabin sits somewhere between five and ten years.
For context, that is roughly one-tenth the lifespan of a properly built timber structure. Peter points out that timber-framed pubs in towns like Stratford-upon-Avon have stood for 500 to 600 years. Building something to last in the British climate is well within reach – it just isn't, in his view, what most UK suppliers are choosing to do.
It's also far shorter than the lifespan most buyers assume they are getting. Peter recalls reading a recent advert for a cabin sold at a premium price, where the supplier openly stated a 10-to-20-year lifespan.
"I thought – we wouldn't buy a house with that expectation. My house is 80 years old, and that's not uncommon in the UK."
The business case nobody is making
The 5-to-10-year lifespan isn't only an engineering problem. It's a serious commercial one – because the biggest payday in any holiday let business is the eventual sale.
Peter learned this the hard way, through a conversation with his own accountant.
"I said to him: I'm making a return from this, but not as high as I'd like. And he said: actually, the real value of your holiday let business is when you come to sell it."
A buyer purchasing a holiday let portfolio in 20 or 30 years' time isn't paying for plywood. They're paying for an asset that still has a productive life ahead of it.
If the cabins are already past their lifespan, leaking, or visibly tired, the sale value collapses.
"If you've got a product which is heavily depreciated, started to leak, materials have lost their qualities – the sale value of the business is just totally depreciated and disappeared."
That's the cost of building cheap, made visible only at the moment it matters most.
Why the UK gets this so wrong
Peter is precise about the cause: value engineering and short-term thinking.
In practice, that means:
Smaller dimensions. "If you can reduce the height by 10–20%, you reduce the cost by 10–20%." It's why so many UK pods feel uncomfortably small.
Cheaper materials. Material prices have spiked. Around 90% of birch plywood used in this kind of build historically came from Russia, with significant timber volume also from Ukraine. The war pushed prices up sharply, and developers under cost pressure reached for whatever was cheaper.
Soft over hard. Many UK builds use fast-grown softwoods – less dense, more susceptible to rot, and shorter-lived than hardwoods like cedar or larch.
De-risking the wrong thing. Developers want to recoup their build cost in the first one or two years of trading. That short-payback logic dictates a cheap product – which then fails before the long-term value can compound.
The Scandinavian model is built on a different assumption: that the cabin will be used both commercially and personally, and is therefore worth investing in. Peter quotes a Netherlands-based developer whose cabins start at €450,000.
The 1968 Caravan Act loophole
There's a regulatory wrinkle that quietly enables the problem.
Many UK cabins fall under the 1968 Caravan Act, which means they don't have to comply with UK building regulations. That carve-out is regularly used as a reason to skip building regs altogether – saving cost, saving paperwork, but stripping out the quality-assurance layer that would otherwise protect the buyer and the end-of-life value of the business.
"I would recommend people do comply with building regulations. They allow you to test the project and make sure you're not going to end up with a unit which is too cold in winter and potentially too hot in summer."
Peter ties this directly to revenue. Cabins that aren't properly insulated can't be rented in winter – costing operators four to six months of bookings every year.
"A lot of our competitors don't rent during the winter. They've not been insulated properly. That's a massive period to be missing out on."
Compliance with building regulations costs more up front. In return, you get a year-round business – and a sellable asset at the end of it.
What "best practice" actually looks like
For landowners and developers – a farmer with five acres, a developer with a site, anyone planning to put cabins on the ground – Peter offers a practical checklist:
Start small. Three to five cabins is enough. The fixation on maximum unit count is part of the problem.
Space them out. Guests pay for privacy. Cabins clustered tightly together perform worse.
Vet the supplier. Ask to see units they built five and ten years ago. If they can't show you, that tells you what you need to know.
Choose natural materials. Avoid cheap composites. Specify hardwoods – cedar, larch – over fast-grown softwoods.
Comply with building regulations even where the Caravan Act lets you skip them.
Insulate for year-round operation. Winter trading is where the margin lives.
Done well, Peter says, hardwood cabins actually improve with age.
"I always compare it to a good pair of leather boots. It starts to temper, it picks up the materials from the woodlands around it. It ages far more gracefully into the surroundings."
What to do if you've already been stung
Plenty of operators are sitting on cabins they bought five or ten years ago that are now visibly failing. Peter's advice is practical, not romantic.
Get a survey. A surveyor or a quality-focused architect can identify what can be repaired and what can't.
Rectify what extends life. Targeted intervention can sometimes buy another 10 years.
Don't expect miracles. Lifting a poorly built unit to a 50-to-100-year lifespan is, in most cases, not possible without starting from scratch.
And don't accept the framing that UK weather is to blame. Stratford-upon-Avon's 500-year-old timber-framed pubs make that argument hard to sustain.
Why the future is brighter, in Peter's view
The post-Covid land grab – when domestic demand surged and developers rushed cheap units onto fields – has peaked.
What replaces it is differentiation.
"As consumers get smarter, they're going to see: there needs to be some form of differentiating factor. If you're choosing between a shepherd's hut with no insulation and poor internal linings versus something clearly built with quality in mind – you're going to go for the latter, even if it's 20 to 30% more expensive."
The opportunity for landowners and developers willing to build for the long term has rarely been clearer.
Listen to the full episode
The full conversation with Peter Markos is out now on the Host Planet Podcast – including Peter's view on the future of cabin design in the UK, common pitfalls he sees in supplier marketing, and what to look for when comparing two cabins side by side. Catch the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple.
Peter is the Founder of Markos Design Workshop, where he designs bespoke long-life cabins and works directly with short-term rental investors building for the long term. He is also an active holiday let operator himself.
Comments