Manchester in the lead for office take-up outside London

Manchester’s office market continued to boom in the last quarter, with the city seeing the highest level of take-up outside London.

In Q3 2015, a total of 379,976 sq ft of office space was transacted, according to new data from property agent Knight Frank, with the city accounting for 28% of the combined total for 10 regional cities.

Furthermore, the figure was 40% above the quarterly average of the last five years.

The head of Knight Frank’s Manchester office, David Porter, said: “The increase in occupier activity in the regions, particularly Manchester, is good news and very fortuitous for those investors that entered the regional markets first.

“This continuing trend will give longevity to the growing Manchester market and should kick start further new speculative schemes.”

In Manchester, the largest Q3 transaction was the £100m acquisition of 2 St Peter’s Square by Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management, part of professional services company Deutsche Bank Group.

David continued: “As leasing markets have strengthened, opportunities in Manchester have become more attractive to investors.

“With the weight of money targeting markets outside London rising, we expect bidding to become more aggressive and place pressure on pricing.”

A total of £1.05bn was invested in property across the 10 regional cities between July and September to push the annual figure to £3.1bn, which is the highest for the nine-month period since 2007.