When it comes to renting top-quality office space, the West End of London is the most expensive place to do it, at least according to the latest figures from the property advisory firm Cushman & Wakefield (C&W).
An associated report suggests that a distinct shortage of quality offices to rent in the West End helped increase asking prices by as much as 2 per cent in the London district last year. That increase was enough to see the West End’s asking prices surpass those asked for in Hong Kong’s central business district, which has long been one of the world’s most costly office space locations.
“As a truly global city, London’s appeal continues unabated. In conjunction with a scarcity of good quality stock, prime rents have increased over the year,” said Digby Flower, Cushman & Wakefield’s head of London markets. “Equally importantly we expect rents to grow further as we get into recovery mode,” he added.
London’s surge to the top spot in C&W’s latest run-down pushed Hong Kong into second position, but the steepest climb up the rankings was managed by the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, which went from 8th to 3rd. According to the numbers, the average asking price for office space in the world’s major cities increased by three percent in 2012.
Speaking quite broadly about office space markets around the world in response to his firm’s findings, C&W’s president and chief executive Glenn Rufrano said: “Safe havens or gateway cities such as London, Hong Kong and New York continue to command high rents despite uncertain economic conditions, as they remain key markets in which to do business; while burgeoning population growth has led to rising occupancy costs in emerging markets in South America and Asia.”
Editor’s notes: Research done by international commercial real estate brokerage JLL in the first quarter of 2023 analysed the locations that demand the highest rents in 2022.
It was found that offices in the Central District in Hong Kong achieved the highest rents in 2022 at the equivalent of £209 per square foot per year. In second place was Midtown in New York City, which achieved the equivalent of £177 per square foot. Third place in 2022 was London’s West End district, which achieved £147 per square foot.
The fourth most expensive office location in 2022 was Finance Street in Beijing, where the highest rent was £135 per square foot, and the fifth was Silicon Valley, where office rents peaked at £120 per square foot.
It should be noted that London’s West End district still holds the record for the most expensive office rent when a private family office signed a lease at the Mercury Group-owned 30 Berkeley Square in 2020. The tenant agreed to pay £277.50 per square foot per year in the deal.
This deal meant that the rent was 30 per cent more than the previous record deal, in which fashion investor and father of Formula 1 racing driver Lance Stroll, Lawrence Stroll, paid £190 per square foot for offices in St James’s.
The continued upward push of rental levels has been created by the continued demand for premium office space, particularly by businesses in the banking and financial services sectors.
Premium-quality offices are rented for various reasons. However, post-pandemic, there is increased pressure to rent the best office space possible to encourage employees to return to the office and to help recruit new employees who may have been used to operating within a hybrid working model.
As the climate change agenda has gained momentum in the early 2020s, there is also increased demand for office space in buildings with green credentials from LEED, BREEAM, and NABERS.
Offices that achieve these tend to be new developments and built in popular CBD locations and, therefore, demand higher rents.
There has also been a reduction in the amount of available space due to the slowdown of existing developments, due to lockdowns during the pandemic, and a slowdown in the start of new developments due to increased building material costs, due to the Russo-Ukrainian war and supply chain issues. There is a lack of confidence in commencing with speculative office developments because of general uncertainty about global economic conditions.
The reduction in supply puts upward pressure on office rental levels.
The same research also analysed the most affordable office space locations in the world and found Cape Town to be the cheapest city to rent office space, with its highest rent in 2022 being just £12 per square foot per year.
Durban and Johannesburg were joint second with prime rental levels at £14 per square foot.
Hyderabad and Rio de Janeiro were the joint third-most affordable rents, where premium office rents attracted £14.50 per square foot.
In February 2025, the Savills quarterly Prime Office Costs report announced that rents for the top tier of grade-A office space globally rose by 0.3% in the final quarter of 2024.
The report also revealed that London’s West End was the top submarket globally in terms of cost among the 35 markets examined, with a net effective cost to occupier (per sq ft per annum) of $277.55 (£221.98). This was far ahead of the second-highest cost location, Hong Kong, at $230.39 (£184.26).
In August 2025, it was reported by Savills that London’s West End offered the world’s most expensive office space in the second quarter of the year (Q2), with an annual cost of $312.13 per square foot per annum, followed by Central in Hong Kong at $225.28 per square foot per annum.
Savills also reported that costs for prime office space worldwide increased by 3.4 per cent year-over-year in H1 2025. The report stated that the increase was driven by a 0.9 per cent growth in gross rents and a 0.8 per cent increase in fit-out costs over Q2 2025. It also stated that the global demand for best-in-class office space continues.