According to Savills, the Oxford life science market saw take-up reach 260,000 sq ft in Q1 2023, up 57% on last year’s figure of 166,000 sq ft. This already represents more than 50% of 2022’s total of circa 500,000 sq ft. Consequently, laboratory and R&D space accounted for 89% of all transactions during the first quarter of this year.
Key deals saw biotech firm Moderna committing to 145,000 sq ft (subject to planning) for a new innovation and technology centre at Harwell Campus, signifying considerable inward investment for the city. Other transactions saw Williams Advanced Engineering take 57,000 sq ft of R&D space at Oxford Tech Park, MiroBio/Gilead take 11,000 sq ft of fitted lab and office space on Oxford ARC and Brill Power set to convert 8,000 sq ft of offices to dry labs within Oxford city centre.
Savills notes that as a result of strong activity, supply in Oxford will remain constrained in the first half of the year. At present all available fitted labs in the city are currently either let or under offer with no additional space being delivered until summer 2023. Beyond that, upon completion, schemes on Oxford Science Park, Abingdon Science Park and along Botley Road should provide approximately 160,000 sq ft of much needed purpose built space to the market.
Given the demand for fully fitted laboratories, Savills anticipates that rents will reach circa £75 per sq ft on key parks across the city.
Jan Losch, associate director in the Savills Science team based in Oxford, comments: “Looking ahead, there is currently 160,000 sq ft of life science related office and lab space under offer which should stand us in good stead as we continue in to Q2. Overall, we are still seeing a significant number of requirements for everything from shell & core to fully fitted and Cat A labs, which will no doubt translate into further take-up as new development is completed and the construction of additional speculative schemes are announced across the city.”
