At the start of 2021, Savills predicted that the City of London was heading for its lowest take-up for more than a decade. At the same time as this drop in demand, there were about 15.5 million square feet (1.44 million square metres) of development and refurbishment coming between then and 2024.

Although the year did not turn out to be as poor for office take-up across the whole of central London as some had feared — with JLL estimating that take-up reached some 8.5 million square feet (790,000 square metres) in 2021, it was still well below the 10-year average take-up of 9.9 million square feet (920,000 square metres).

This drop in office-space take-up, experienced across many parts of Europe, is partly due to the ongoing repercussions from the COVID-19 crisis. But the pandemic has only accelerated an ongoing trend, present even before 2020. CBRE has noted that the office sector has been evolving in the last few decades, mainly with the aim of improving efficienc