London Lettings – December 2015

Central London office lettings maintained momentum with a further 1.1m sq ft of transactions in December 2015, spread across 74 deals during the month. The annual total reached just over 12m sq ft, about 5% below the 2014 total.

December was characterised by 15 deals over 20,000 sq ft, including WeWork at Waterhouse Square, EC1; Carlyle Group at St James’ Market SW1; Turner & Townsend at One New Change, EC2; Office Group at Eastbourne Terrace, W2 and and RGA Media at 99 Clifton Street, EC2.

Business services topped the table of lettings by sector, helped bytwo WeWork deals, followed by financial services boosted by Carlyle. Computer and media sectors are also performing well. Office deals under offer remained around 3.5m sq ft.

By area, the City accounted for only just over a third of the total space let at 36pc of the floorspace let in December. Midtown, Victoria and Southbank all had a good month. Current London office demand is calculated to be around 5.9m sq ft in the City and 3.6m sq ft in the West End.

The volume of grade A (newly built or refurbished office space) let during the month reached 400,000 sq ft (36% of the total), as transactions for newly developed or refurbished space took a slightly smaller part of the total this month.

Metropolis is working on an upcoming report on office requirements in London and across the UK.