London Office Availability At All Time High

Vacant Offices in London Hit Record Levels

Office availability in central London is at its highest level in more than 15 years, the latest sign of how the pandemic-driven shift to remote working is upending demand for commercial property.

Central London is suffering from vacant offices due to two main factors; COVID related working conditions have increased the ability of employees to work from home and provide remote services and support.

August 2022: This pandemic shift has resulted in office availability numbers hitting an all time records at the time of writing when unused commercial properties reached unprecedented figures. With nearly 31,000,000 square feet lying dormant (source:CoStar), think of looking up the London City Gherkin and times it by 60, which is over a 50% increase from the 20,000 sq.ft abandoned at the end of 2019 pre-pendamic.

Availability was close to 31 million square feet in August 2022, according to real-estate data and information company CoStar. That’s the equivalent of about 60 Gherkin skyscrapers, and is up 51% from the 20 million square feet that was available at the end of 2019. Roughly 5 million square feet is marketed by tenants for sublease.

A lot of London properties are rented by tenants, some figures have been crunched to estimate around 5,000,000 square feet will now be sublet. Those old enough to remember the financial crash of 2009, the area back then was estimates at 28,000,000 square feet.

The last time this happened, office values decreased sharply, the plunge being attributed to the global financial crisis. Some financial forecasts and predictions warn that the amount of square footage available in London city will continue to rise into early 2023.

Office Refurbishment Contractors in London

Initial Interiors was founded by Tim Griffiths back in 2001, demonstrating success for over 20 years. The recent figures above are likely to worry London employers who have been demanding their employees return back to the office and forcing the Work From Home to end. Initial Interiors has seen a dramatic increase of office/property owners investing in the morale of the staff with re fitting the break out rooms, installing green living walls and creating open spaces with an atrium. Additionally, the welcome aspect of the company reception areas should not be overlooked.

Two years after the first covid lockdown, around 50% of the UK’s banking sector commute into the company offices each day, with a less than 1/5 of the insurance and financial industry employees doing so, according to an Advanced Workplace Associates survey in 2022.

To discuss your project, or ideas for improving your office space, renovating the mood lighting, from improving the working environment with positive colour schemes and decreasing office noise with glass partitions, Initial Interiors will be delighted to discuss.

Contact Tim online or by calling 020 8938 3893 today.

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