Data from the property advisor suggests that around 1.3 million square feet of offices were occupied by IT and telecoms firms during the year, including Apple, Google, Groupon, and Nokia.
The 1.3 million square feet figure is more than twice what technology groups rented during 2010, and Knight Frank wants to point out that the influx wasn’t limited to East London areas that have established a reputation as hotbeds for tech-based business development.
Shoreditch and Old Street, in particular, have become known as districts where more and more technology companies are opening offices. Still, Covent Garden, Clerkenwell, Farringdon and Fitzrovia reportedly attracted many firms in the same sector during 2011.
“That companies, like Apple, Google, and Facebook, want to be in London over other European cities is a great vote of confidence in the capital,” said John Snow, head of central London offices at Knight Frank.
Looking at the London office market as a whole, Knight Frank’s report makes clear that uptake was squeezed in 2011, with the collective scale of letting deals falling by 27 per cent over the year.
However, with supply having fallen considerably in recent years and a growing number of technology giants leasing offices across London, the property firm’s experts were convinced there is plenty of cause for optimism going forward.
“I believe we could see office demand pick up again by the summer,” said James Roberts, head of commercial research for Knight Frank. “If office demand from tech firms doubles during an economic slowdown, it will be interesting to see what happens when growth improves,” he added.
Editor’s notes: In 2022, the total amount of office space in London taken up through lettings in 2022 was 10.1 million square feet.
Of that, the technology, media, and telecom (TMT) sector accounted for just 17 per cent, down from a peak of 29 per cent in 2021.
In 2023, office space was taken up by 9.7 million square feet. The TMT sector accounted for 15 per cent of the total. This figure is down from the previous year and below the long-term average of 21 per cent.
Central London office take-up for the first quarter of 2026 reached approximately 2.4 million square feet, and take-up was at 2.81 million square feet in Q2 2026, around 4 per cent above the ten-year quarterly average.
AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI acquired almost 250,000 square feet of office space in the quarter alone.
Savills reported that the Tech & Media sector accounted for the largest share of H1 office leasing activity in Central London, capturing 31 per cent of take-up. This was 64 per cent above the sector’s long-term H1 average and marked its strongest first half since 2017. Overall, AI-related occupiers accounted for almost half of all Tech & Media take-up.