UKREiiF to Leave Leeds for Liverpool After 2027

The UK’s largest property and investment event, founded in Leeds, will stage its final edition in the city in 2027 before moving to Liverpool

The UK’s biggest property and infrastructure event is to leave the city where it was born. UKREiiF, which launched in Leeds in 2022 and has grown into the country’s largest real estate and investment forum, will hold its sixth and final Leeds edition at the Royal Armouries in May 2027 before relocating to Liverpool from 2028. It is a notable loss for a city that nurtured the event from a local start-up into a national fixture. But organisers stress the business itself will remain based in Yorkshire, and the city is already positioning its response.

Why This Matters For Leeds

UKREiiF has been a genuine asset for Leeds, drawing thousands of investors and decision-makers to the city each year and putting it on the national and international stage. Its departure is a real loss, taking a major annual boost to hotels, venues and the wider visitor economy with it. The silver lining is twofold: the event company stays rooted in Yorkshire, and Leeds is using the moment to build bigger conference capacity so it can win other major events.

Why UKREiiF Is Moving On

Since launching in 2022, the event has grown rapidly, bringing together more than 17,000 delegates from government, investment, development and local authorities, and organisers estimate that over £4bn of investment and projects are in the pipeline or being delivered as a direct result. Leeds City Council puts the event’s economic benefit to the city at around £75m. Organisers say the move to Liverpool, and specifically its new Liverpool Experience Campus, is about room to keep growing with more space and a wider choice of delegate accommodation as the event expands. Crucially, they are at pains to frame it as a growth decision rather than a rejection of Leeds: co-founder Nathan Spencer said the business would remain based in the region, pointing to its Yorkshire talent pool and described the Leeds years as a legacy that would always belong to the city and West Yorkshire.

“This isn’t a story about leaving Leeds; it’s a story about celebrating everything that Leeds and West Yorkshire has helped UKREiiF become — without the region the event wouldn’t have been as successful.”

— Nathan Spencer, Co-Founding Director, UKREiiF

How Leeds Plans to Respond

For Leeds, the departure comes with a forward-looking twist. The Royal Armouries, which has hosted the event on the South Bank every year, is pressing ahead with its own major Waterfront redevelopment, a scheme that would more than double its conference and events space and is explicitly aimed at attracting the next generation of large-scale events to the city. Council leader James Lewis said UKREiiF had proved the city’s ability to stage big conferences and had already encouraged others to commit to Leeds, and that the authority would keep pressing the case for investment. Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin struck a more wistful note, saying the event was born in the region and that she hoped it would one day come home. The challenge now is to turn the profile the event built into lasting momentum for the city’s events economy, backed by the expanded venue to come.