According to the latest research from leading property consultancy CBRE Scotland, the Aberdeen office market has continued its strong performance in 2018 with a further 96,819 sq ft of office space transactions in the third quarter, an 8% increase on the second quarter. This brings the total take-up for the first three quarters of the year to 275,369 sq ft.
There have been 23 office market deals transacted over the past three months, with demand particularly high from the energy sector. The largest letting of the quarter was Noble Drilling’s acquisition of 16,591sq ft in the Stratus Building at ABZ Business Park in Dyce. Other notable deals from the energy sector include INEOS taking 9,702 sq ft on the second floor of Prime View, Prime Four Business Park and Sentinel Marine and Solstad Offshore UK Ltd taking 4,515 sq ft and 4,713 sq ft respectively within The Exchange on Market Street.
Significant transactions have also been completed within a range of other sectors, with NHS National Services Scotland taking almost 10,000 sq ft on the fourth floor of 1MSq at Marischal Square and training consultancy Millstream securing over 6,000 sq ft in AB1 on Huntly Street.
Commenting on the latest figures, Amy Tyler from CBRE’s Aberdeen office said: “It’s great news that the growth we saw in the first half of 2018 has continued into the third quarter. There is no doubt that the recent rise in oil price is continuing to contribute to the demand, however whilst many of our completed transactions have been from within the oil and gas industry, there has been significant uptake from others sectors. This clearly demonstrates the desire, across the board, for high quality and well located office space, whether that be city centre based, or on the periphery.
“The total amount of available office space at the end of the third quarter was 2.67 million sq ft, which is down 7% year-on-year, showing an increased demand. We also have a number of transactions waiting to conclude before the end of the year which will further decrease the amount of available space. All the signs are that the growth that we have seen in the first three quarters of 2018 is set to continue.”