It will come as no surprise to London’s startups that demand for London’s office space is very high.
Property prices in the City have been rising steadily for years, with particularly significant spikes in the past two years.
It has been revealed that demand for London office space is at its highest level since 2000, according to property consultancy Knight Frank.
Space is going, going, gone…
Three million square feet of office space was acquired in the third quarter of 2014. The last time that amount was acquired in the same time period was 2000.
Property demand was up 39% on the previous quarter, led by the mammoth purchase of 431,000 sq ft Principal Place by Amazon.
The data also found a drop in the supply of office space, which makes a rise in price more likely.
Mobile performance lagging
It’s not just high demand for office space that plights London. It turns out the city’s mobile service isn’t as good as everyone hoped.
London was one of the first cities to receive 4G and has already been championed by Boris Johnson to be the first city in the world to get 5G.
However, it lags behind Liverpool, Manchester, Coventry and Birmingham with only the 5th best mobile performance.
Most worrying was call performance, where London ranked 14th in the country.
London is desirable
It wasn’t all bad news for the British capital this week though.
Earlier this week, it was named the most desirable city in the world to work in, beating out New York and Paris.
Better yet for London’s tech scene, it was also the most attractive city to relocate to for tech, trumping US hub Silicon Valley.
For many, the biggest draw to London was the cultural experiences that could be gained in the city.