2017 was a fantastic year for the Fitzrovia and Noho office market.

There was a total take-up of 740,720 square feet, making 2017 the third time in four years where activity has exceeded the general trend. There were a number of large transactions which dominated take-up during this period, most notably, Derwent London’s development at 80 Charlotte Street where Boston Consulting and Arup Group taking up 123,500 square feet, and 133,600 square feet respectively.

There have been a wide range of occupier types in this West End submarket. Media, design, and technology companies were the largest Fitzrovia office occupiers in the 6 months to March 2018 taking up a total of 34% of the space which was occupied in that time. The second largest occupier type in this period was the business and professional services industry who took up 28% of the office space in that time, real estate companies took up 15% with other industries accounting for the remaining 23% of take-up.

There were also a variety of different sizes of office space which was taken up between Q4 2017 and Q1 2018. The average size of units taken up was between 2,500 and 5,000 square feet, with 28% of transactions being of that size. In addition, there were also a number of transactions of properties which ranged in size between 5,000 and 10,000 square feet with 23% of offices taken up during this period at that size. By contrast, just 6% of office take-ups in the Fitzrovia/Noho area were under 1,000 square feet, and about 14% of transactions were for big units over 20,000 square feet in the size.

However, take-up has been slower in Q1 2018 with just 68,300 square feet of space being taken up. Once again, the largest transactions during this period have been at 80 Charlotte Street where a total of 33,850 square feet of office space was taken up by Boston Consultancy and the Arup Group. In addition, supply has also gone down over the past 6 months, with a total availability of 458,000 square feet available at the end of March 2018. Second hand space currently represents 58% pf stock on the market with all grades of space seeing availability drop.

Noho/Fitzrovia office rents remained at around £85.00 per square foot for Grade A office space which is 5.6% below the peak in 2016. However, rental values of refurbished space have gradually increased by 3.8% to reach an average of £67.50 per square foot.

Over 30% of the space available is between 2,500 and 10,000 square feet in size, nad 37% is over 20,000 square feet in size. This indicates that there is a wide variety of space to suit every need. If you are looking to rent an office in Noho, take a look at the wide range of Fitzrovia offices available on our website.