Regional office take-up is at its highest recorded level, according to DTZ, as a surge in prelet activity drove leasing to 5.9m sq ft in the last year.
A total of 1.2m sq ft of grade A space was leased in the first half of 2015 in the regional office markets, 35% above the long-run average.
Birmingham was the strongest performing city, recording its highest half year take-up for 28 years thanks to major deals such as HSBC’s 212,000 sq ft prelet of 2 Arena Central.
Leeds posted the second highest take-up with notable deals including Addleshaw Goddard and PwC.
Alex Dunn, senior UK analyst at DTZ, said: “The surge in preletting activity has been enabled by an enlarged development pipeline following years of developer inactivity. 8m sq ft of speculative space is due to be completed by 2019 – an enormous 138% increase in development compared to the last four years.”
