Finding the perfect office space in London is an exciting milestone for any growing business. Whether you are a startup outgrowing a coworking membership or an established scale-up consolidating your hybrid work strategy, securing the right physical headquarters is crucial. However, the traditional process of finding and booking office viewings in London can quickly become a full-time job. Between endless broker emails, mismatched property listings, and coordinating calendars, it is easy to feel overwhelmed.
This comprehensive guide walks you through how to streamline your search, what to prepare before booking, and how to make the most of your office viewings. By taking a structured approach, you can save dozens of hours and secure the best possible deal for your team.
1. Define Your Workspace Requirements First
Before you start reaching out to landlords or booking viewings, you need a clear picture of what your business actually requires. Booking viewings without defined criteria leads to wasted time and decision fatigue.
Determine Your True Space Needs
Do not just calculate space based on your current headcount. Consider your growth plans over the next twelve to twenty-four months. For hybrid teams, you may not need a desk for every single employee every day. Instead, focus on the daily peak occupancy. A team of fifty might only need thirty dedicated desks if people work from home two or three days a week. However, you will need to balance this with adequate breakout spaces, phone booths, and meeting rooms to accommodate collaborative work.
Map Out the Commute
London is vast, and a beautiful office in an inconvenient location will remain empty. Survey your team to find out where they live and map out the most central, accessible transport hubs. If your team is split between South London and North London, areas like London Bridge, Farringdon, or Waterloo might be the ideal compromise. Ensure the surrounding neighbourhood has the right amenities, such as cafes, lunch spots, and venues for after-work team socials.
Understand Your Budget Structure
Office pricing in London can be structured in two main ways: conventional leases and serviced offices. Conventional leases require you to pay rent, business rates, service charges, utilities, and fit-out costs separately. Serviced offices, on the other hand, offer an all-inclusive monthly fee that covers rent, cleaning, internet, utilities, and building management. For most growth-stage businesses, serviced offices provide the predictability and flexibility needed to scale without massive upfront capital expenditure.
2. How to Find the Best Office Spaces in London
Once you have defined your requirements, the next step is finding the spaces that match your criteria. Historically, this meant contacting multiple commercial property brokers, which often resulted in getting bombarded with irrelevant listings.
Today, there is a much more efficient way. Using a platform like Flowspace gives you access to a searchable database of over ten thousand available offices across Europe, including London’s top flexible workspaces. Instead of managing relationships with ten different brokers, you work with a single concierge team. We do the legwork of filtering the market, building tailored shortlists, and negotiating the best rates on your behalf, completely free of charge.
3. Step-by-Step Guide to Booking Office Viewings
Once you have a shortlist of potential offices, it is time to arrange the viewings. Here is how to manage the booking process efficiently.
Step 1: Select Your Top Three to Five Options
We recommend selecting no more than five spaces for your initial round of viewings. Viewing too many offices in one go can make them blend together, making it difficult to remember the specific pros and cons of each building.
Step 2: Group Viewings Geographically
Do not spend your day travelling back and forth across London. Group your viewings by neighbourhood. For example, if you are looking at spaces in East London, book your Shoreditch, Old Street, and Clerkenwell viewings on the same morning or afternoon. This keeps the comparisons fresh in your mind and minimises travel time.
Step 3: Coordinate Key Decision-Makers
Ensure that the people who have the final say, such as your founder, COO, or Head of People, are present for the viewings. Booking a second viewing because a key decision-maker missed the first one can cause you to lose out on a highly competitive space. If they cannot attend in person, ask the building manager if you can take a video tour or record the walkthrough.
4. What to Look for During an Office Viewing (The Checklist)
An office viewing is your opportunity to look beyond the polished marketing photos and assess how the space will function for your team on a daily basis. Keep this checklist in mind during your walkthrough:
- Natural Light and Ventilation: Dark, windowless basement offices harm productivity and morale. Look for spaces with large windows and ask about the air conditioning and fresh air ventilation systems.
- IT and Internet Infrastructure: Ask about the upload and download speeds, whether the building has a backup fibre line, and what the process is for setting up a private, secure network for your company.
- Meeting Room Credits and Communal Spaces: Many serviced offices include a set number of free meeting room booking hours per month. Find out what happens when you exceed that limit and check the availability of communal breakout areas.
- Building Amenities: Check the quality of the communal kitchens, bike storage facilities, showers, and reception services. If your team cycles to work, secure bike storage and high-quality showers are non-negotiable.
- Acoustics and Noise Levels: Pay attention to the noise levels within the private office. Can you hear conversations from the corridor or neighbouring offices? Is there street noise from outside?
5. The Flowspace Advantage: Stress-Free Office Search in London
Finding and booking office viewings does not have to be a stressful, time-consuming chore. At Flowspace, we act as your in-house workspace acquisition team. We take your brief, scan the entire London market, curate a bespoke shortlist of spaces that fit your culture and budget, and coordinate all your viewings in a single, streamlined itinerary.
Even better, our team negotiates the rates directly with the operators so you do not have to, ensuring you get the absolute best deal. Whether you need a ten-person office in Soho or a fifty-person headquarters in the City, we are here to do the heavy lifting.
Ready to find your next London workspace? Let our concierge team build your free shortlist and book your viewings today. Explore our London office space database to get started.
FAQ
How long does it take to book and complete office viewings in London?
Typically, we can arrange viewings within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of your initial inquiry. The viewings themselves usually take fifteen to thirty minutes per space, meaning you can easily see three or four offices in a single morning or afternoon.
Do I need to pay a fee to use Flowspace to book viewings?
No, our office search and booking service is completely free for tenants. We partner with London’s leading office operators and receive a standard fee from them, allowing us to offer you independent, expert advice and negotiation support at zero cost.
What is the best time of day to view a potential office?
We recommend booking viewings mid-week, such as Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, during standard working hours. This allows you to see the building when it is active, giving you a realistic sense of the atmosphere, communal space capacity, and local noise levels.
Can I negotiate the price of a serviced office after a viewing?
Yes, serviced office rates are often negotiable, especially if you are willing to sign a longer contract or if the building has high vacancy rates. The Flowspace team handles these negotiations on your behalf to secure discounted rates, rent-free periods, or waived move-in fees.
How quickly can we move into a London office after viewing it?
For flexible serviced offices, the move-in process can be incredibly fast. Once the contract is signed and the deposit is paid, you can often move in within a few days. For conventional leases, the legal and fit-out process typically takes three to six months.