Rising global uncertainty failed to dent the recovery in the UK office occupier market in the first quarter of 2025 as take-up remained resurgent and net demand turned positive for the first time in five years. This allowed vacancies to compress slightly after several years of increases.

Over half a million square feet (46,500 square metres) more office space was moved into than vacated in the first three months of the year. This ended a run of consistent demand losses going back to the lockdown quarter of 2020, with 41 million square feet (3.8 million square metres) vacated on a net basis during the past five years. Combined with a lack of new office completions, the UK national vacancy rate fell slightly to 8.6 percent, down from the 12-year high of 8.7 percent reached at the end of 2024. This marked the first time office vacancies had fallen since the first quarter of 2020, when the vacancy rate was 4.6 percent.

A similar trend is taking shape in the United States.