Law firms have flocked to take space in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester ahead of other regional cities, a report by CBRE has found.
The three cities each have more than 750,000 sq ft of office space occupied by law firms, ahead of Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool and Glasgow, which have volumes in the range of 300,000-500,000 sq ft.
Office take-up hotspots have recently been Manchester, Leeds and Belfast, with large deals including 100,000 sq ft acquired by Slater & Gordon in Manchester and Addleshaw Goddard taking 51,500 sq ft in Leeds.
CBRE found that many legal firms were choosing to occupy high-quality office space while operating at a substantial discount to London, with “global legal service centres” emerging in regional cities over the last four to five years.
Many of these occupiers have chosen a UK regional centre after considering a number of worldwide locations from a cost, quality and risk perspective, the report found.
Law firms were also paying on average significantly below the prevailing headline rent in each city.
James McLean, senior director of the CBRE UK tenant advisory group said: “Law firms are undergoing a period of rapid evolution and transformation, fuelled by rising demand for legal services, increased pressure on fees and intensifying competition from more savvy, innovative competitors as well as freshly merged larger firms.”
The report, Law in the regions, includes details of law firms’ property strategies gained from interviews with some of the country’s top law firms, as well as data research to find the UK’s top 30 law firm locations, top cities by number of fee earners, average area and rent per fee earner.
Emma Jackson, associate director in CBRE Research, said law firms were becoming “increasingly sophisticated” in their approach to property strategy, resulting in a huge variety of space requirements in UK regional cities and a significant variation in the average area per fee earner.
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| Size rank | City | Total legal floorspace (sq ft) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bristol | 874,321 |
| 2 | Birmingham | 781,893 |
| 3 | Manchester | 774,922 |
| 4 | Edinburgh | 486,467 |
| 5 | Leeds | 476,023 |
| 6 | Liverpool | 350,217 |
| 7 | Glasgow | 322,205 |
| 8 | Cardiff | 226,062 |
| 9 | Nottingham | 220,221 |
| 10 | Newcastle | 202,802 |
