Unite said its 2012-2014 London development programme was “progressing well” in a strong set of half-year results today which saw profits up 67% to £7.2m.

The group has planning consent and funding for a 563 bed project in Camden which is due for completion in 2013 and is in current negotiations for sites containing 1,200 beds to hit the 4,000 bed target by 2014.

Construction spending on new schemes under the current development programme will be £264m in London and £93m across the rest of the UK.

The firm said: “The London market continues to benefit from a huge supply/demand imbalance, with universities providing only 20,000 beds for a total of 280,000 students.

“Private companies currently provide approximately 25,000 student beds in addition, with a development pipeline of a further 13,000 new beds likely to be completed by 2014.

“Even with the additional beds in this pipeline, the level of supply in London will still be roughly half of the rest of the UK with 2.8 students per available bed space compared to 1.5 per bed space across the remainder of the country.”

Unite said a steady influx of foreign students attracted to London universities will continue to drive demand and the international market is unaffected by changes in student fees.

Chief executive Mark Allan said: “As the shape of changes to university funding becomes clearer, we remain confident that we are positioned to deliver resilient performance and outperform the wider student accommodation sector as a result of our London focus, the high quality of our portfolio and university relationships and our established brand platform.”