London West End Office Letting Market Review

Recent research by Cushman & Wakefield on the London West End office letting market reveals:

West End office lettings in the Q2 of 2019 reached nearly 800,000 sq ft which was 7% above the average for second quarter take-up in the last five years. Across the first half of 2019 this brought total transactions to 1.83m sq ft which was 10% ahead of the five year average and 4.3% up on 2018.

Pre-lets played an important role in total take-up with 24% of space pre-let in the West End including large deals to G-Research, UK Parliament and Li & Fung

The volume of office space under offer in the West End increased to 1.2m sq ft. This was 54% ahead of the five year average and should fuel more deals in the second half of the year. Indeed we have already seen another big West End pre-let, with the 105,000 sq ft pre-leased to Diageo at Great Marlborough Street, London, W1. Further deals have been concluded to the serviced office sector.

Metropolis is monitoring a large number of large West End requirements by occupiers such as: Apollo Management, Technicolour and Ralph Lauren. West End requirements at 4.7m sq ft are well above their long-term average.

New, Grade A space lettings accounted for 65% of lettings according to C&W. In addition, nearly 50 of the 180 recorded office moves or expansions were over 5,000 sq ft in Q2. Some 20% of the relocations were by office tenants in the financial sector, followed by 19% in the technology and media sector.

Supply of offices is tight in the West End with a vacancy rate of 4% and only one building able to accommodate movers of greater than 100,000 sq ft. There are currently only 28 buildings which are set to be delivered over the next five years, which will have floorplates 15,000 sq ft and over. The majority of available space is in the fringe, Hammersmith and White City. Some 72% of space in the West End currently under construction was pre-let.