Bilfinger GVA’s Big Nine UK cities research shows Manchester’s city centre and out-of-town office markets surpassed the five-year quarterly average take-up figures in Q2, highlighting continued confidence in the occupier market.
The property consultancy’s Big Nine: Quarterly review of the regional office occupiers markets, reveals take-up performance of the office markets in the Big Nine cities outside of London.
Manchester city centre take-up (359,829 sq ft) was 34% above the five year quarterly average. The sheer number of transactions below 10,000 sq ft illustrated the depth of marketplace as the impressive level of take-up was underpinned by only a couple of ’stand out’ deals, 45,000 sq ft to Ford Credit at First Street and 42,000 sq ft to Freshfields at Arndale House.
Manchester led Q2 out-of-town performance with 315,291 sq ft take-up, 50% above the five year quarterly average, with two of the largest transactions completed: 106,000 sq ft to TalkTalk at Soapworks, Salford Quays and 27,000 sq ft to SAGE at Exchange Quay, Salford Quays.
With Manchester’s tighter supply of Grade ‘A’ accommodation, the city has demonstrated higher levels of rental growth, achieving the highest rent of the Big Nine at £32 a sq ft.
Chris Cheap, Senior Director at Bilfinger GVA Manchester comments: “Take-up figures for Q2 reveal a strong demand trend, with rental levels increasing by an average of 11% across the nine cities over the past 12 months. This builds upon the previous year’s increase of 6% and has been coupled with a 30-35% decrease in incentive levels.”
He adds: “Out of town there has been a similar success story and whilst the market was slower to recover from the lack of demand during the recessionary period, take up is now significant.”
