Read the profile of companies that offer alternatives to leased office space – the providers of flexible workspace in the West End
A report from the commercial property firm Cushman & Wakefield states that over 11 million square feet of office space in the area will be leased in 2011-13, creating a scarcity of space.
This will in turn produce upward pressure on rents and make pre-lets more commonplace, the property firm stated.
Over the first quarter of this year, the total supply of office space in the West End dropped by more than ten per cent. The lack of major development completions in the first quarter exacerbated this.
Currently, central London has a supply of 18.1 million square feet, a year-on-year drop of four per cent.
Guy Taylor, Head of West End Offices, Cushman & Wakefield, said, “This market in the West End is being driven by a lack of choice of good quality space due to the lack of development since the beginning of the recession.
“Take-up is being driven by lease events more than expansion and the TMT and financial sectors are pushing the market forward.”
Take-up in the West End in the first quarter of 2011 was approximately 600,000 square feet, with TMT being the most active sector. This sector accounted for 45 per cent of take-up. Statistically, the most active sub-market in the West End was Soho and Covent Garden.
The report also found that rents of approximately £100 per square foot are fairly common in Mayfair and St James’s. And in the short term, there is no sign that rents will drop. Mayfair in particular is a favoured location for niche financial players such as hedge funds.
Editor’s notes: In 2022, headline rents in the West End reached £130 per square foot per year for the best space.
Take-up through office space lettings totalled 4.1 million square feet – this was higher than the previous year and 11 per cent higher than the 10-year annual average of 3.7 million square feet.
The Banking and Finance sector accounted for the highest proportion of activity in 2022 at 44.3 per cent, followed by the Manufacturing Sector at 15.6 per cent and then the technology, media and telecoms (TMT) sector at 15.5 per cent.
In Q1 2023, active demand stood at 3.1 million square feet, which represented a rise of 14 per cent quarter-over-quarter.
Several new-build development schemes were underway and are due to complete in 2024 and 2025, and a total of 3.2 million square feet was due to complete in 2023.
Research published by Savills in May 2026 found that take-up in the West End in Q1 reached 833,712 square feet despite macroeconomic turbulence. This figure was down just 1 per cent on Q1 in 2025 and 6 per cent on the 10-year average.
Occupiers have also shown a clear preference for fitted space, with over two-thirds of sub-10,000 square feet transactions, and over 80 per cent of those under 5,000 square feet being fitted.
The most significant leasing deal in the West End in Q1 was Databricks’ pre-let of the entire 135,000 square feet at Network, 10 Howland Street, Fitzrovia, in what was the largest transaction by a Tech & Media sector occupier since 2021.
Average prime rents were down marginally year-on-year as a result of lower levels of activity in the core markets of Mayfair and St James’s, and stood at the end of the quarter at £165.00 per square foot.
The overall vacancy rate fell to 7.8 per cent in the first quarter. Core markets continued to experience persistently low supply levels. For example, in Mayfair, the vacancy rate contracted to 3.4 per cent, making it the most undersupplied of the West End submarkets, with just 12 months of supply based on average take-up levels.
The constrained future pipeline was unlikely to resolve this, with over half (54 per cent) of the space due for delivery in Mayfair by the end of 2027 already pre-let.
Across the West End, just three schemes totalling 303,000 square feet reached practical completion in Q1 – less than half the amount that was delivered during the same period in 2025. In fact, three-quarters of the 1.6 million square feet expected to complete in Q1 (as of the end of last year) saw their completion date moved forward, indicating that delays to schemes continued to linger and that the record quantity of space that is currently forecast in 2026 will likely spill over into 2027.
By 2028, completions were set to fall to just 1.6 million square feet, which – with the exception of the pandemic-induced slowdown in 2020 – would be the lowest level since 2018. Overall, 8.3 million square feet was scheduled to complete between the remainder of 2026 and 2029, just over one-fifth of which was already pre-let by the end of Q1 2026.