Office take-up in key regional cities reached just over 1.3m sq ft in Q2 2017 – close to the quarterly 10-year average – but prospects for the second half of the year are looking more promising, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
Larger deals in the second quarter of the year included the Government Property Unit taking 180,000 sq ft for a civil service hub at Artisan Real Estate Investors’ New Waverley scheme in Edinburgh, and WeWork taking 55,800 sq ft at Allied London’s No 1 Spinningfields in Manchester.
Scott Rutherford, partner and national head of offices at Cushman & Wakefield said: “Political uncertainty has dampened occupier confidence in some cities and this has been reflected in a slowdown in enquiry levels in Q1 and Q2 2017.
“The regional markets have been working hard this year to deliver these results. We have seen a new resurgence of larger scale enquiries from both the professional and business service sectors and also the finance sector which is a significant improvement on what we have experienced in the last four quarters.
“This, combined with the upcoming GPU activity in Birmingham and Leeds following the deal in Edinburgh, will have a significant impact as supply is tight across all of the regional office markets without exception.”
He added: “In addition to increased take-up, we are seeing rental growth across a number of regional cities with occupiers increasingly looking to those offering flexible and high-skilled labour markets.”
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