High Street Wellness and Private Health Consumers: Emerging New Trend for 2026

Nelson Advisors
3 minutes ago
16 min read

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: THE HIGH STREET WELLNESS INVESTMENT IMPERATIVE

The high street wellness phenomenon represents a fundamental structural transformation of England’s town and city centres, shifting the core economic function from cyclical, transactional retail toward resilient, service-based, and experience-led health and wellbeing offerings. This transition is not merely cosmetic; it is driven by powerful macroeconomic forces, notably the structural resilience of the self-pay health consumer and targeted government intervention aimed at high street revitalisation.

This analysis confirms the viability of High Street Wellness as an investment theme. High covenant, service-led operators, spanning clinical services, premium fitness and specialised beauty, are actively displacing traditional retail. This trend supports premium rental yields and robust asset valuation, particularly in prime London locations, which are seeing rents for specialised F&B and wellness venues achieve £100–£150 per square foot annually.

However, the market performance is highly stratified. Success directly correlates with local economic resilience, specifically high disposable income and favourable demographic profiles, particularly in Gen Z-led cities that prioritise experiential spending. The primary risk lies in generalised deployment across vulnerable, retail-dependent towns. Strategic capital must be directed toward integrated, technologically advanced service models within mixed use developments, leveraging the crucial alignment between commercial viability and public health policy, as outlined in the ‘Healthy High Streets’ mandate.

SECTION I: THE STRUCTURAL REALIGNMENT OF THE ENGLISH HIGH STREET

1.1 Defining the Ecosystem and the Shift from Transaction to Experience

High Street Wellness is defined by the physical manifestation of convergence across several sectors: preventative health, specialized beauty, bespoke fitness and supplementary secondary care services situated within traditional town centres. This evolution signifies a deep, structural transition within the commercial property landscape, fundamentally moving beyond transactional commerce to personalised, service based and experience focused consumer interactions. This model emphasizes customer longevity and high engagement over fleeting retail purchases.

This shift holds critical implications for town planning and public policy. Local authorities and public health experts now recognise that the high street environment is highly influential in shaping overall health outcomes, acting as a crucial location where communities work, live, meet and consume. The recognition of high streets as social and environmental determinants of health has prompted policies explicitly focused on revitalising these areas.

A key requirement for this revitalisation is the mixed use imperative. Policy actively promotes the development of mixed-use streets that combine commercial, residential, cultural, leisure, and service industries. This multi-functional approach is supported by evidence demonstrating that it encourages essential health determinants, including footfall, active travel (walking and cycling) and social interaction, which helps to build social capital and reduce isolation.Local decision-makers, including public health professionals and town managers, are officially advised to promote and support such mixed-use developments to enhance community well-being.

1.2 The Engine of Growth: The Private Health Consumer

The foundation of the high street wellness economy lies in the demonstrable and sustained growth of the privately funded healthcare sector. This sector shows structural resilience and validates the willingness of UK consumers to finance their health needs independent of the National Health Service (NHS). Non-NHS private hospital and clinic admissions reached a record 939,000 in 2024, representing a 3% increase on the prior year and a cumulative 20% increase compared to 2019 volumes.

A pivotal metric underscoring consumer prioritisation is the resilience of self-pay. While private medical insurance-funded admissions saw a 6% increase, self-pay admissions have surged 38% compared to 2019, despite a minor 3% fall in 2024 likely related to temporary macroeconomic pressures. This long-term trend confirms a consumer fundamental shift: health expenditure is increasingly prioritised, translating into a strong, reliable customer base for premium high street wellness services, from preventative diagnostics to specialised therapy.

The current systemic pressures on the NHS provide a direct economic catalyst for private investment. Persistent high NHS waiting lists and ongoing industrial action from medical professionals are not solely indicative of a failing public system; they are strong market signals that consumers are willing to expend significant capital to purchase time and certainty in their care pathways.

The growth in self-pay admissions proves that consumers are actively seeking immediate solutions to bypass clinical backlogs. This situation directly validates the financial models for high street operators offering preventative, diagnostic and supplementary services, thus translating into strong covenant viability for clinical and semi-clinical tenants. Furthermore, the government’s continued reliance on the independent sector, evidenced by policy moves such as the digital integration of independent providers into the NHS App, underscores the market stability and institutional necessity of private health infrastructure.

The policy landscape also structurally favours wellness real estate. Local decision-makers are explicitly mandated to audit and reduce the density of retail outlets that have a negative impact on community health, specifically naming fast-food, alcohol, and gambling establishments. This regulatory bias establishes a powerful competitive advantage for wellness operators. In areas targeted for redevelopment or revitalization, local government planning departments are structurally incentivised to approve change-of-use applications for health-positive businesses over those deemed detrimental to public health. This planning dynamic effectively accelerates the market shift toward health-positive real estate usage, thereby reducing frictional costs for developers and investors in this sector.

SECTION II: CONSUMER DEMOGRAPHICS AND MARKET ELASTICITY

2.1 The Essentialisation of Wellness and Demographic Segmentation

The continued growth of the wellness sector, even amid general economic uncertainty, is rooted in a fundamental shift in consumer perception. Globally, consumers no longer perceive wellness spending as a luxury or a purely discretionary expense; instead, it is viewed as essential for maintaining good health, strengthening immunity, increasing longevity, and improving mental resilience. This psychological floor provides a degree of insulation to the high street wellness sector against the volatility often observed in traditional discretionary retail.

The market demand is highly segmented and driven by distinct demographic behaviours:

Gen Z-Led Experiential Demand: Younger populations, concentrated in major urban hubs, are driving the demand for highly experiential offerings. Cities identified as Gen Z-led, such as Manchester, Bristol, and Brighton, are showing significant demand for wellness studios, specialised cafes, and creative retail concepts. This demographic prioritises experiences over product ownership, aligning perfectly with the service-led high street model.
The Longevity Economy: The Over-65 demographic is contributing significantly to e-commerce growth.This suggests that while this group might not drive experiential studio footfall, they are strong consumers of wellness products, such as supplements, specialised nutrition, and health monitoring devices, which are often purchased online but complement the specialised service offering found on the high street.

2.2 Income Correlation and Geographic Stratification

The financial resilience of the high street wellness market is intrinsically linked to local economic strength. Disposable income acts as a critical barometer for demand stability. Analysis confirms that every 1% rise in local income correlates with a 0.8% reduction in vacancy rates. This income elasticity requires investors to implement a highly stratified geographic strategy.

Cities benefitting from robust incomes, tourism, and diverse professional economies demonstrate exceptional resilience:

Prime Market Resilience: London (7.4% vacancy), Cambridge (8.5%), Oxford (9%), Brighton (9.2%), York (9.2%), and Edinburgh (9.3%) are thriving. These cities have tightly controlled vacancy rates and benefit from high disposable income and strong consumer confidence.
High-Income Stability: Cities such as Reading and Milton Keynes, where local incomes are significantly above the national average, exhibit strong resilience and retail diversity.

Conversely, towns dependent on legacy retail-only models and suffering from low local incomes face stark challenges. Cities such as Newport (19% vacancy) and Bradford (18%) continue to struggle with nearly one in five shops standing empty. This confirms that a generalised investment strategy risks deploying capital into markets that lack the necessary consumer income base to support premium service-led models.

The market structure is fundamentally polarised, creating an affordability cliff for certain operators. Ultra-luxury services are shielded by high-net-worth (HNW) wealth, and community-focused wellness facilities are often subsidised or supported by public health policies in regeneration areas. The most vulnerable segment remains the mid-market studio or clinic situated in cities where incomes are stable but sensitive. These operators lack the extreme pricing power of the luxury end yet rely heavily on potentially fluctuating discretionary spending, making them the most susceptible to sustained inflationary pressures and cost-of-living increases.

The success of high street revitalization is also directly tied to diversified leisure integration. Thriving cities are those that offer a broad range of leisure and cultural offerings. High street wellness facilities are strongest when integrated into this ecosystem, clustering with specialised food and beverage (F&B) and cultural venues. This strategy capitalises on shared footfall, increases consumer ‘dwell time’ within the property catchment, and consequently boosts property value and rental security for the landlord.

SECTION III: COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE AND ASSET VALUATION

3.1 Rental Performance and Investment Momentum

Wellness has cemented its position as a key commercial driver, working alongside the evolving F&B sector to dynamically reshape London’s commercial property market. This shift is strategically supported by major landlords, such as Cadogan (Chelsea) and Grosvenor (Belgravia), who actively prioritise unique, innovative operators over generic chains, often offering flexible leases to attract brands that enhance overall property value.

This strategic preference translates directly into robust income streams. F&B and wellness spaces in prime London locations are achieving annual rents of £100–£150 per square foot. This premium pricing power underscores the stability and high revenue generation capacity of service-led tenants compared to traditional retail.

The overall investment climate for the health and care sector is buoyant. The UK is recognised as the most attractive care home real estate market in Europe, driven by strong pricing power, scalable portfolios, and growing private-pay demand. This stability attracts significant international capital, with US investors demonstrating sustained interest. This momentum in the broader healthcare real estate sector provides a strong corroboration of value for the high street wellness sub-sector.

3.2 The Ultra-Luxury Model: Revenue Generation and Footprint Requirements

The highest tier of high street wellness demonstrates the sector’s capacity for institutional-grade revenue generation and its unique real estate requirements. Two prominent London examples illustrate this specialised model:

Lanserhof at The Arts Club: Dubbed "the world's first medical gym," this facility is an integrated clinical-fitness hub spread across six floors in Mayfair. Its model includes a high-tech induction process utilising an aerospace-inspired machine to assess body composition and musculoskeletal health, with results forming the basis of bespoke training programs delivered by medical professionals. This extensive service offering is supported by premium pricing: annual membership starts from £6,500, plus a £1,500 joining fee.
Surrenne (The Emory): Conceived by the team behind Claridge’s, this four-floor private members’ club in Knightsbridge focuses on longevity and exclusive wellbeing. It features ultra-luxury amenities, including a gold-leaf ceiling pool, state-of-the-art customised gym equipment, and food management by a renowned nutritionist. The exclusivity is reflected in the pricing: annual membership starts from £10,000, plus a £5,000 joining fee.

The high-revenue profiles of these operators ensure exceptionally robust tenant covenants capable of supporting the highest tier of prime London commercial rents. The required multi-floor, large-format real estate footprint is ideally suited to the repurposing of legacy department stores and large-scale, empty retail units.

3.3 Asset Differentiation Through Tenant Wellbeing

The investment thesis for High Street Wellness transcends mere rental income; it fundamentally re-rates the commercial real estate asset itself. The promotion of tenant and consumer health and wellbeing has become a critical consideration for investors and property owners, serving as a powerful key differentiator in the competitive commercial real estate market.

Landlords who prioritise health amenities and integrated wellness offerings are strategically positioned to attract and retain high-quality corporate tenants. This is underpinned by measurable economic advantages for tenants: employees working in "green buildings" have demonstrated a 26% increase in productivity and a 15% reduction in absenteeism. Providing direct, convenient access to high-street wellness services becomes an invaluable amenity for companies focused on human capital performance.

Given the high revenue generation and demonstrable covenant strength of integrated medical-wellness operators, this specific asset type is strategically distinct. Strong investor demand in the related healthcare sector suggests potential yield compression in sub-sectors where demand is strongest. Consequently, prime, well-occupied wellness assets are increasingly being assessed closer to the stable healthcare infrastructure asset class rather than cyclical retail, mitigating perceived risk and driving capital value growth.

Furthermore, integrating wellness initiatives aligns naturally with corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability goals. As companies prioritise their social and environmental impact, real estate assets that offer healthy, sustainable, and inclusive workspaces are increasingly attractive to ESG-focused institutional investors.

The pervasive decline of legacy retail has resulted in numerous large, empty buildings across town centres.Converting these often multi-level units into integrated wellness centres presents a substantial value-add opportunity for real estate owners, provided the planning framework permits the strategic repositioning. This repurposing activity is highly profitable, especially when zoning allows for a seamless blend of retail, clinical, and leisure uses required for sophisticated "Experience Store" concepts. Landlords who proactively engage with local authorities to secure flexible mixed-use planning permissions are creating considerable value through the strategic repositioning of obsolete assets.

SECTION IV: BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION AND OPERATIONAL SCALABILITY

4.1 The Experience Store: Technology, Personalisation and Immersion

The most successful contemporary high street wellness model is the "Experience Store," which radically departs from traditional retail by centring the consumer journey around an immersive, sensory, and highly personalised experience. This model leverages the physical space as a destination for guidance and engagement.

Core to the Experience Store concept is sophisticated technological integration. This includes the use of interactive screens for tailored product recommendations and virtual reality tools designed to transport the customer to tranquil, serene environments, enhancing the atmosphere of relaxation and mindfulness.

This high-touch approach addresses a crucial consumer need: the UK consumer places a high priority on personalisation, with over 88% reporting that they prioritise personalisation as much as or more than they did several years ago. Successful operators utilise data collected from personalised fitness trackers or high-tech assessments (like those employed at Lanserhof) to provide hyper-relevant offerings, thereby significantly boosting customer loyalty and lifetime value. Experts in these physical stores offer one-on-one consultations to help customers navigate the complex and often confusing landscape of health supplements and services, essential given the widespread consumer confusion regarding health definitions and conflicting advice.

4.2 Operational Requirements for Scalable Retail Health

For high street wellness operators to scale nationally and maintain consistent performance across multiple locations, they must adhere to rigorous operational standards that differentiate them from traditional, fragmented healthcare delivery. Industry analysis identifies five critical pillars for success in scalable retail health.

Convenience: Ensuring frictionless, end-to-end access to care, encompassing physical visits, virtual consultations and at-home services.
Price Transparency: Providing clear, upfront, and predictable costs for services and products prior to delivery, setting it apart from traditional healthcare's opacity.
Offering Integration: Seamlessly integrating complementary services (eg. pharmacy, clinical, fitness) under one brand and operational structure to meet multiple consumer needs, which is essential for maximising foot traffic and customer retention.
Interoperability: Ensuring the consumer's data (health history, prescriptions, payment information) is instantly accessible across all points of care, facilitating continuity and supporting convenience.
Consistency: Delivering a reliable and nearly identical standard of experience, service, and quality across every location and interaction.

The success of the high street wellness model is fundamentally dependent on the seamless operational and technological integration of services. If an operator fails to integrate its complementary offerings, for example, by maintaining separate web portals, distinct payment systems, or fragmented branding for clinical and retail services, this lack of cohesion significantly compromises the consumer experience. Such fragmentation reduces operational efficiency, limits the ability to collect and harness unified customer data, and ultimately undermines the commercial viability of the physical location, posing a direct threat to lease longevity. Investors must conduct thorough due diligence on tenant technological and branding integration strategies.

The drive for hyper-personalisation necessitates continuous and sophisticated data collection. As a consequence, the physical high street wellness facility is evolving from a mere point of sale or service into a crucial physical data acquisition hub. High-tech diagnostic machines, comprehensive body assessments, and personalised consultations leverage the physical location to gather rich consumer physiological and behavioural data. The long-term value of the commercial real estate asset will therefore become increasingly linked to its capacity to support the high technological infrastructure and flexible spatial layouts required for these data-driven, immersive interactions.

SECTION V: POLICY, FUNDING, AND THE WELLBEING ECONOMY

5.1 Government Intervention and Financial Support

The revitalization of the high street is a core policy priority for the UK government, outlined in the "Build Back Better" vision. This strategy aims to provide regulatory flexibility to allow high streets to become hubs of economic and social activity, focusing on bringing empty buildings back into use and actively supporting new businesses.

While direct grants specifically earmarked solely for wellness operators are not detailed in existing programs, the sector benefits profoundly from central government funding directed at infrastructure and regeneration:

Future High Streets Fund (FHSF): With a total fund of £1 billion, this program is designed to deliver transformative structural changes in town centres, with over £830 million allocated to 72 places to date.
Levelling Up Fund (LUF): This fund focuses on town centre and high street regeneration, local transport improvements, and the expansion of cultural and heritage assets. Wellness tenants are ideal anchor occupiers for the revitalised, mixed-use infrastructure created through these substantial financial investments.

5.2 Public Health Alignment and Levelling Up

The policy advice issued by Public Health England provides a powerful alignment tool for investors. Local decision-makers are actively advised to encourage a greater diversity of healthy retail outlets and promote mixed-use streets. This mandate provides a structural incentive for planners to favour wellness businesses, viewing them as valuable community assets that improve health outcomes and reduce inequalities.

This objective is further integrated into the government’s wider "levelling up" agenda. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted significant "green inequality," revealing that deprived areas often lack access to high-quality green and blue spaces. High street wellness facilities, particularly those focusing on movement, rehabilitation, and mental health, act as essential urban health assets. By providing accessible, high-quality, health-promoting services in underserved urban cores, high street wellness contributes directly to mitigating environmental health disparities and supports the core political goals of levelling up.

The support for temporary installations, such as pop-up cafes and art exhibitions, designed to add interest and encourage social interaction, offers a low-risk strategy for scalable operators. This mechanism allows wellness brands to pilot high street concepts in regeneration areas (Tier 4 cities) to test market viability, consumer demand, and operational feasibility before committing to the capital-intensive fit-outs required for long-term leases on highly vacant high streets. This strategic use of temporary space effectively reduces deployment risk.

Furthermore, the government’s stated intention to build on pandemic innovations and provide regulatory flexibility creates a temporal opportunity for commercial real estate strategists. This window of reduced friction, potentially easing planning restrictions for service-based businesses in legacy retail units, should be rapidly exploited to repurpose assets. Property developers who move quickly to secure favorable change-of-use permissions can create significant value before regulatory conditions potentially become more constrained after the immediate "Build Back Better" phase concludes.

5.3 The Long-Term Macroeconomic Justification

The structural transformation observed in the high street is mirrored by a wider global shift towards the concept of a Wellbeing Economy. Unlike traditional economic models focused solely on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a Wellbeing Economy values human health, environmental sustainability, and social equity as core indicators of success.

This macroeconomic framework provides powerful validation for investment in the high street wellness sector. It confirms that the financial viability of these assets is based on addressing a core, essential societal value (health and well-being) that consumers have demonstrated they prioritise, insulating the sector from the economic volatility seen in purely discretionary retail. Investment in high street wellness aligns asset performance with sustainable, long-term societal goals.

SECTION VI: STRATEGIC OUTLOOK AND RECOMMENDATIONS

6.1 Risk Assessment and Structural Vulnerabilities

While the High Street Wellness market shows compelling structural growth, investment is subject to several key risks that require mitigation:

Location Risk and Sensitivity to Income: Despite the perception of wellness as "essential," many high-end services remain premium. Market performance is highly uneven, with high vacancy rates persisting in markets with low local income and retail dependency. Failure to implement a tiered geographic allocation strategy exposes investors to significant non-systemic risk.
Human Capital Constraint: The specialized nature of integrated wellness, particularly the clinical component, exposes operators to profound labor market pressures. The health and social work sectors currently face severe hard-to-fill vacancies. This challenge drives up operational costs and may limit the scalability of high-specification models, particularly outside of major urban centres where skilled labour pools are concentrated.
Operational Execution Risk: The complex requirement for offering integration, technological interoperability, and absolute consistency means that poorly financed or technologically unsophisticated market entrants face high execution risk. Failure to meet these operational demands undermines customer retention and increases the likelihood of covenant failure, despite the strength of underlying consumer demand.
Macroeconomic Headwinds: Although consumers prioritise health, the overall UK economy remains sensitive to global economic impacts, sustained unemployment, and skills shortages. Sustained inflationary pressures could push the mid-market wellness consumer back from service consumption toward basic product purchases, impacting operators that lack the pricing power of the ultra-luxury segment.

6.2 Recommendations for Strategic Investment and Portfolio Management

To maximise returns and mitigate the identified risks, commercial real estate investors should adopt the following strategic posture:

Calibrated Asset Allocation: Implement a meticulous, tiered geographic investment strategy. Capital should be disproportionately allocated to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities (e.g., London, Manchester, Brighton) to secure high-specification assets supported by high income and experiential demand.Engagement with Tier 4 (regeneration) opportunities should only proceed where central government capital (FHSF or LUF) de-risks infrastructure and conversion costs.
Focus on Data and Technology-Ready Assets: Investment focus must shift towards properties capable of supporting high technological infrastructure, including dedicated systems for diagnostics, advanced HVAC, and reliable connectivity—essential for delivering scalable, personalised "Experience Store" models. Future value is intrinsically linked to the physical asset’s capacity to function as a data acquisition hub.
Mandate Operational Integration Due Diligence: Investment teams must move beyond traditional financial covenant analysis and assess potential tenants against the five pillars of scalable retail health, ensuring a proven strategy for seamless offering integration and data consistency. Operational fragmentation represents a material, unmitigated risk to lease longevity.
Leverage Policy Alignment for Planning Gain: Actively engage with local authorities in regeneration zones and leverage the public health mandate. Presenting wellness proposals as essential mixed-use infrastructure that achieves public health objectives (e.g., encouraging active travel, reducing negative outlets, levelling up) can secure favorable planning treatment and long-term political stability for the asset.

CONCLUSION

The High Street Wellness movement in England is not a cyclical retail fad but a permanent, structural convergence of the retail and healthcare asset classes, driven by fundamental shifts in consumer values and healthcare provision. The demonstrable growth of the self-pay market (+38% self-pay admissions since 2019) validates the consumer's essentialisation of wellness expenditure.

By strategically allocating capital based on economic resilience (local income), demographic drivers (Gen Z experience demand), and strict adherence to the scalable operational requirements (integration, consistency), investors can secure assets that offer superior covenant strength and attractive yields. The successful High Street Wellness asset anchors the new service-led urban economy and aligns commercial viability with the sustainable goals of the Wellbeing Economy.

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