Latest serviced office rents in central London present a mixed picture

My colleague Ian Kitchener has been blogging about leased office rents for many years. I’ve now decided to redress the balance with this post about serviced office rents.

Ian seemed to me to be slightly losing the plot in his last post. He seemed more concerned with his neurosis of being overtaken by women on electric bicycles than his observations about the Central London office market!

Good quality serviced offices

So I decided to take up the slack at the end of Q2 2018 and take pleasure in publishing updated rental estimates for the serviced office market.  The prices are based on private “good quality” offices. There are of course cheaper and also more expensive options in each area. However, I’ve based my estimates on current prices for good quality offices available in the 19 areas of the Find a London Office central London survey.

Please bear in mind that serviced offices are priced per desk per month. Prices are inclusive of rent, rates, service charge, furniture, heating, cooling, lighting etc.

Serviced office rents in established areas have come down a bit, whilst rents in emerging locations have increased

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Looking at the list it is striking that serviced office rents in the most established core areas such as Mayfair, St James’s and the City of London have come down a bit (but not a lot). At the same time rents in emerging  locations (or should I say exploding locations) have increased. Shoreditch, Old St & Farringdon have matured into first choice locations for creative companies wishing to coexist in creative bearded heaven!

Is cost still the determining factor when choosing an office location?

Looking at our latest serviced office rental guide to the end of Q2 2018, it is striking that the difference between the cheapest and the most expensive serviced offices is not as pronounced as you might expect. Serviced office rents are actually pretty similar across the bulk of Central London. Which leads me to believe companies are perhaps now making location choices based on factors other than cost.

I’ll be back with another update and analysis of serviced office rents in around 3 months time.