A record year for Manchester has led to a 15% spike in office take-up in the UK’s six largest regional cities last year.
Office take-up in Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester edged close to 5m sq ft in 2014, above the 10-year average according to JLL Big Six report.
The agent said Manchester witnessed a ‘spectacular’ year with 1.3m sq ft of space transacted, the largest of the big six cities rising 54% on the same period last year and a new record for the city. Nearly a third was signed for in the last quarter, led by DLA taking almost 45,000 sq ft at One St Peter’s Square.
Bristol saw office take-up leap 66% to 836,000 sq ft but just 130,000 sq ft of this was grade A. Leeds was the only big six city to see take-up fall after a record-breaking 2013.
There was no sign of strength in the regional markets waning with more than 9m sq ft of active demand. Developer confidence also improved with more than 1.9m sq ft of office space currently underway in more than 16 schemes, with Leeds and Manchester both set to deliver four each.
Click on the buttons on the interactive graph below to change between take up and annual % change. Hover over the bars to see absolute values.
