Member Article

Start-Ups Taking Office Space increase By 52% in 2014 According to Search Office Space Report

New statistics collected by searchofficespace.com show that there has been a rise of over 52% in 1-2 person office space deals in 2014. The figures compare 2013 to only 9 months of 2014, showing a positive growth in the number of small businesses moving into Central London, following the countries emergence from the recession.

This is supported by StartUp Britain who has counted almost 400,000 new businesses so far this year which, if it continues at this rate, will overtake last year’s record figure of 526,446.

The Search Office Space figures also show that there has been a rise in the number of businesses growing in size year on year. There was a huge 69% leap in businesses expanding to 6- 10 employees taking office space in 2014, versus 2013.

Search Office Space founder and CEO Richard Smith commented, “These figures show a clear rise in overall small business confidence in the first three quarters of 2014. It will be interesting to see how the last quarter results stack up. What is also important are the strong levels of business expansion in central London, indicating strong annual growth in the small and medium sized business sector”.

The CBRE Q2 report supports the claims, showing a rise in UK consumer confidence, UK business confidence and UK retail sales. They claim that Q1 aside, office take-up in Central London has been improving since the end of 2012, with the 12 month rolling total increasing to 14.2m sq ft, its highest since Q4 2010.

They go on to claim that demand for office space in London “is expected to increase by 3.2% this year and by an average of 2.2% per annum over the coming five years. Not only is this rate stronger than the 1.7% growth per annum forecast across the UK as a whole, but is also ahead of the growth expected in the majority of other European cities.”

These figures demonstrate how London continues to contribute strongly to the UK’s economy, with average office space being taken growing to over 6.5 desks in 2014.

With this rise in new start-up businesses, the development of 9.2 million square feet of office construction in the UK’s capital city and the country’s office space market back to pre-recession levels, 2014 has been a great year for business growth so far. And with Search Office Space statistics showing a rise in the average workstations per deal up from 5.36% to 8.23% in 2014 so far, the trend looks set to continue.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Joseph Lofthouse .