Office take-up in London’s West End currently stands at 3.1m sq ft in 2018 – with a further 1m sq ft under offer – after 1.1m sq ft of space transacted in the third quarter, according to JLL.
Facebook accounted for the biggest deal in Q3 with its 600,000 sq ft prelet in King’s Cross, N1.
TMT is still the most dominant sector in the West End, accounting for 67% of take-up so far in 2018. The services industry, including serviced office providers, was the second most active sector, accounting for 25% (756,000 sq ft).
JLL predicts that take-up this year will exceed the 10-year average of 3.3m sq ft, and may even hit 4m sq ft.
Pre-leasing has also been a key theme in 2018, accounting for 67% of take-up, with pre-completion deals making up 39% of all transactions so far, according to JLL.
Adrian Crooks, head of West End agency at JLL, said: “The continued high levels of take-up, especially from the larger corporate occupiers, underlines the West End market’s fundamentals to attract high-profile tenants.
“This sustained demand, especially in the face of limited current and future supply, has not only resulted in rents being maintained across the West End but has also seen some submarkets, such as Paddington, emerge to position themselves as genuine competitors to some of the more traditional locations.
“Looking forward to the end of the year, taking into account ongoing deals, our figures suggest that we will see continued strong levels of take-up and therefore continued eroding levels of supply.
“However, going into 2019 we may have to be prepared to see occupiers adopt a more cautious approach given the political uncertainties we are currently experiencing.”
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