Pubs are a central part of live music and nightlife, but the business behind the bar is shaped by leases, tied supply arrangements and regulation. The Pubs Code Adjudicator’s 2023-24 figures cover 7,983 pubs code agreements with tied tenants as of 31 March 2024, while its tenant surveys show how operators experienced their pub companies in 2023 and 2024.
Contents
- The regulated pub estate
- Agreements, protection and change
- Tenant satisfaction
- Support, repairs and dilapidations
- What tenants were told
- Who runs these pubs
- How the regulator operates
The regulated pub estate
The Pubs Code regulates pub-owning businesses with 500 or more tied pubs in England and Wales. The regulated tied-pub estate covered six pub-owning businesses with more than 500 tied tenants, according to the Pubs Code Adjudicator compliance infographic. This is a specific regulatory population rather than a count of every pub in the country, so the figures below describe the tied estate covered by the Pubs Code.
As of 31 March 2024, the estate contained 7,983 pubs code agreements with tied tenants. The total was 126 agreements lower than the previous year, a fall of 1.6%, according to the Pubs Code Adjudicator compliance report 2023-24. Since 2018, the number of agreements across all six regulated entities had fallen by 21%.
The movement was not identical for every business. Admiral’s regulated estate was down 5.8% in 2023-24, while Marston’s grew by 2% during the same reporting period. Looking across the longer period, Admiral’s estate had increased by 42% since 2018, whereas Stonegate’s had declined by 32%. These are changes in the regulated estates reported by the PCA, not a forecast of future pub numbers.
Agreements, protection and change
Of the 7,983 agreements recorded at 31 March 2024, 2,676 were protected by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. The comparable number previously stood at 3,035, and the number of LTA 1954-protected agreements had declined every year since 2016. The distinction matters because the protection figure is a subset of the wider pubs code agreement total.
The compliance infographic recorded 441 agreements surrendered during the reporting period and 79 agreements abandoned. It also recorded 130 Market Rent Only notifications, with 48 Market Rent Only agreements concluded with pub-owning businesses. These measures describe different stages and outcomes, so they should not be added together as a single measure of pub closures or transfers.
The same infographic recorded 82 alleged Pubs Code breaches reported by pub-owning businesses. An alleged breach is a report, not a finding that every report was substantiated. Keeping that wording intact is important when interpreting regulatory statistics.
Insurance was another area where the reporting captured both activity and outcome. Twenty tied tenants formally attempted to price-match premises insurance, and eight accepted matches were approved. The Pubs Code Adjudicator compliance report 2023-24 describes this as a 40% success rate.
| Measure | Reported figure | Period or reference |
|---|---|---|
| Pubs code agreements with tied tenants | 7,983 | 31 March 2024 |
| LTA 1954-protected agreements | 2,676 | 31 March 2024 |
| Agreements surrendered | 441 | 2023-24 reporting period |
| Agreements abandoned | 79 | 2023-24 reporting period |
| Market Rent Only notifications | 130 | 2023-24 reporting period |
| Market Rent Only agreements concluded | 48 | 2023-24 reporting period |
Tenant satisfaction
The PCA’s 2023-24 tied-tenant survey interviewed 1,203 tenants. In 2024, 63% were satisfied with their relationship with their pub company overall, while 21% were dissatisfied, according to the PCA Annual Tied Tenants Survey 2024. The survey result is an account of tenant sentiment during 2024; it is not a measure of customer satisfaction among pub visitors.
Overall satisfaction varied by pub-owning business. Marston’s recorded 79%, Admiral 78%, Greene King 77% and Stonegate 47%. The spread between the highest and lowest reported figures was therefore 32 percentage points. The figures are survey results for the named businesses and should not be treated as a ranking of nightlife venues or entertainment quality.
The previous PCA Annual Tied Tenants Survey Results 2023 interviewed a record 1,206 tenants. In that survey, 62% said they were happy with their current relationship with their pub company. Business-level overall satisfaction was 85% for Marston’s, 75% for Greene King, 75% for Admiral, 60% for Punch, 55% for Star and 50% for Stonegate.
The two survey years provide context, but they use separate reported samples and business comparisons. A single percentage should therefore be read with its survey year and source rather than presented as a timeless measure of the pub sector.
Support, repairs and dilapidations
In 2023, 55% of tenants said their pub company provided the right level of business-planning support. Marston’s scored 81% for this measure, while Admiral and Greene King each scored 67%, according to the PCA Annual Tied Tenants Survey Results 2023.
Repairs and dilapidations produced lower satisfaction. Overall, 37% of tenants were happy with how repairs and dilapidations were managed in 2023. Satisfaction was 26% among tied lease tenants, 40% among tied tenancy tenants and 51% among other-agreement tenants. These categories describe agreement types in the survey, so the figures should not be interpreted as the satisfaction of all tenants with the same contractual arrangement.
The 2024 survey provides more detail on the role of business development managers. Four in five tenants said their BDM was fair in discussions with them. Fifty-seven percent agreed that their BDM supplied the business-planning support they needed on an ongoing basis. Agreement was 84% for Marston’s, 76% for Admiral and 72% for Greene King, while Stonegate recorded 33%.
Forty percent agreed that their BDM managed repairs well, and 61% agreed that their BDM supplied useful information on dilapidations. Marston’s, Admiral and Greene King each scored 71% for useful dilapidations information from their BDMs; Stonegate scored 53%. These results separate the quality of information from the broader question of whether repairs themselves were managed well.
What tenants were told
The PCA Annual Tied Tenants Survey report for 2024 measured whether tenants recalled receiving key information. Eighty-five percent recalled receiving details of tied obligations, 84% recalled rent and deposit information, and 82% recalled maintenance and repairs information.
Awareness of the Code Compliance Officer improved in the reported comparison: 52% recalled an introduction to their CCO in 2024, up from 44% in 2023. In the 2023 survey, only 25% of tenants said they knew who their CCO was. Among those who could name their CCO, 56% were satisfied with the information and advice received about the Pubs Code, and 51% were confident in how their CCO handled Pubs Code matters.
For newer tenants, 85% of those who had started in the previous two years found the pre-tenancy information useful in 2024. Seventy-three percent found their Sustainable Business Plan useful. These are recall and usefulness measures from the tenant survey, not an independent assessment of the content of each plan.
Who runs these pubs
The 2024 survey also described the people operating the regulated pubs. Fifty-eight percent of surveyed tenants were men and 39% were women. Sixty-five percent were aged 45 or over, while 13% were aged 16 to 34. Eighty-nine percent were white, and 9% said their day-to-day activities were limited by a long-term health problem or disability.
The operating experience was often long-term: 85% of surveyed tenants were single operators, 52% had held tenancies for 10 years or more, and 62% had started their tenancy after the Pubs Code was introduced in 2016. These figures describe the survey sample’s characteristics and tenure history; they are not estimates of every person working in pubs or nightlife.
How the regulator operates
For 2023-24, the PCA’s levy methodology allocated 40% of the levy to fixed costs, 20% to arbitration and 40% to regulatory activity. The six pub-owning businesses were levied between 5.4% and 35.9% of the total levy amount. The smallest levy amount was £160,059.55 and the largest was £1,065,934.82, according to the Pubs Code Adjudicator levy methodology 2023-24.
The same methodology recorded a 2022-23 contract liability underspend of £2,467,571. That is a reported accounting figure for the stated period, not a current estimate of regulatory spending.
Service timing was also reported by the PCA. From 1 April 2023 onward, the PCA appointed an arbitrator to a dispute within 20 working days in 90% of cases, according to Pubs Code Adjudicator information about its services. Together, the levy and arbitration figures show how the regulatory system was funded and how quickly one part of its dispute process operated during the cited period.