Shoreditch Office Space remember the days when the only Tech companies in Shoreditch, were those who couldn’t afford to be elsewhere. Old Street offices were sometimes occupied by IT companies (as they used to be known) doing things with servers and computers.  The area was also popular with Telecom service providers looking to be close to a City client base at a fraction of the cost.  Well times have changed and the Tech City Map seems to growing day by day driven by Technology  Start Ups and people relocating from the West End and other places in the World.

Tech City Office Space

So has Shoreditch always been a Tech City or has the influx of Start ups looking to be the next Apple changed things fundamentally? The first thing to consider is why Shoreditch. Well the simple answer is found by looking back a few years to when Shoreditch Offices to rent were the cheapest in London taking account of service charge, rates and rent. Average rents two  years ago were £20.00 per sq ft, and rates and service charge would normally account for another £10.00 per sq ft. So leasing an office at about £30.00 per sq ft meant being in Central London and not falling out with your bank manager.   A compelling reason to rent an office in Shoreditch.

The second factor in our view is that Science often follows Art. Everyone knows that East London is home to more creative types than anywhere else in Europe. Or at least anyone who’s interested in Art. There are more Artists living in Hackney than anywhere else in Central Europe says a recent survey. Artists often see beauty and potential in places and buildings that others don’t. This happened in Shoreditch with former factories such as Lipton Tea warehouse rebranded as The Tea Building on Bethnal Green Road, and forward thinking creative companies moved in.

A few years after the artistic companies were happy hiding in Shoreditch,  technology companies started rebuilding ideas hatched in the original dot.com boom of 2001. Shoreditch Office Space started to watch as companies that had been simmering started to build momentum. Entrepreneurs began to take risks, and great companies such as Google and Microsoft started to become relevant to a new generation.

The Credit Crunch cleared out some broken companies and those which had run out of ideas. For instances Red Communications going bust, lead The Estate Office to react. They refurbished about 40,000 sq ft on Great Eastern Street,  and watched rents double to just under £40.00 per sq ft. Yammer moved in, and it was a happy coincidence that Mircosoft entered Shoreditch through their take over.

The powerplay was no doubt when Google accelerated everything Tech in the area with the motto “lets fill this town with start ups” as the Government beamed with hope  and the Bonhill Street Campus became the centre of the Tech Universe in London.  We had a bandwagon, and many others were ready on jump on.

However not everyone in Shoreditch thinks Tech City is a welcome thing to Shoreditch, and it’s often the subject of office space that divides opinion. There are plenty of architects, designers, thinkers and poets who are now thinking that places like Brockley, New Cross, Haggerson, Dalston and E14 are viable alternative locations. The problem is that Old Street and Liverpool Street are pretty well connected, and modern business is as much about face to face as it is Facetime.

So in Summary Tech City is great for Shoreditch, as it’s bringing a whole new energy to the area. Creative companies are going to have to adapt to survive if they don’t want to be priced out, but then with a Tory government, capitalism was always going to appear, even in Shoreditch.

So if you want to move to Tech City, Shoreditch Office Space is the only company based in the area who represent tenants and tenants only. We help secure offices for Tech City companies as well as look after the needs of the Shoreditch old faithful .

Email sean@shoreditchofficespace.com to chat through this, or any other office based topic.