Sykes Holiday Cottages: Where It All Began

For over 30 years, Sykes Holiday Cottages has been providing some of the UK’s finest holiday cottages and today is, one of the UK’s leading independent holiday cottages rental agencies!

Representing over 21,000 properties our aim is to deliver the best choice of holiday homes as well as unrivalled service. We have also been recognised by the British Travel Awards as the Best Large Company for UK Holiday Rentals and by the Sunday Times as one of the Top 100 Companies to work for.

With so many years of experience in holiday home management and UK travel, what the team here at Sykes doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing!

Find out how the story began and what the future holds for Sykes Holiday Cottages…

Sykes Holiday Cottages: A History

Back in the late 80s/ early 90s, Clive Sykes and his mum were busy beavering away on their then-small holiday lettings agency, the aptly named ‘Cottage Holidays’. They took their own holiday cottages, as well as those of friends, and rented them out to holidaymakers across the UK who were looking for affordable, convenient and comfortable self-catering accommodation around the Yorkshire Dales.

Their devotion and commitment to their trade was apparent from the word go. Single-handedly, Clive sketched line drawings of every one of the properties, as well as illustrations for the company’s debut brochure, which was released in 1992 – just think of the patience!

It was this dedication and staunch will to succeed that saw the swift expansion of the company, and with the much better-suited title of Sykes Cottages, this kitchen table enterprise soon began to gain ground. Originally geared towards properties in Northern England, Sykes Cottages began to expand to other parts of the UK and, by 1994, had accumulated a handful of cottages in the Peak District, Northumberland and Southern Scotland.

By word of mouth and rising prestige, Sykes Holiday Cottages recruited more and more holiday cottage owners who had heard about the agency’s commitment and hard work in delivering great bookings for their loyal cottage owners.

And so it continued, and Clive’s harrying for unbeatable service for both customers and owners saw the company expand to all four corners of the UK. As it stands today, Sykes Holiday Cottages has over 21,000 self-catering cottages to rent across the UK and Ireland and is very proud to be B Corp Certified!

Sykes Holiday Cottages: The Future

Now based in the historic city of Chester, Sykes Holiday Cottages has developed into a nationally renowned business employing over 1000 people, all of whom share Clive’s original passion for providing the very best cottage holidays.

We combine the latest technology with three decades of UK holiday know-how to provide our customers and our owners with an unrivalled level of service, something which saw us win the British Travel Award for Best Large UK Cottage/ Self Catering Booking Company from 2013 to 2024!

We’re also committed to making a positive impact on our people, local communities, and the planet. To achieve this, we introduced our profit-with-purpose strategy in 2021, which marked a real change for the business as our purpose became part of our overarching strategy, not just a side project. You can learn more about the work we’ve done and continue to do in our latest Impact Report on our Impact page.

With our website and mobile app, booking a break with Sykes Holiday Cottages has never been easier. Sykes Holiday Cottages may have seen significant growth over the years, but we’ll never forget where our journey began!