Unpacking Office Jargon

Shoreditch Office Space: Unpacking Office Jargon

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If you’re new to the office market, there can be a lot to get your head around. Fortunately, Shoreditch Office Space is here to make sense of it all for you. If you can’t tell your shared from you leased, your co-working from your serviced, take a look at our easy-to-use guide.

Co-working Spaces

These are work environments where you pay by the desk in a communal space. You will share the space with a number of others, normally small teams ranging from 1-5 people. Generally open plan in their design, these places can be a great place to get some work done and meet new people at the same time.

A superior option to working at home, co-working or shared office provides all the necessities of a work space (desk, chair, internet connection etc.) so you are able to ‘plug and play’. You only pay for the desks you use, so if your team expands or you need to downsize, there is no hassle. Terms vary, but a deposit of a month is common.

Serviced Offices

Imagine booking into a hotel. You’d expect everything to be taken care of when you move in. You don’t want to be assembling the bed frame or plumbing the bathroom.

Serviced offices are the ‘hotels’ of the work space world. Offering everything you could
need to hit the ground running, you are provided with a complete office package. The offices will invariably be private, and you will have access to bookable meeting and board rooms. Serviced offices are fantastic for companies that require flexibility from their work space. If you think your company will be expanding or contracting in the near future, the advantage of a serviced office building is that you can increase or decrease your usage fairly easily.

Paying by the desk means overheads are manageable and you won’t get any nasty unforeseen charges. It is always important to check what is included, however, to make sure there are no ‘hidden costs’ like phone line rental or dedicated internet lines. As with any contract, make sure you fully understand your commitment before you sign.

Leased

To continue our residential analogy, leasing an office is similar to renting a flat. Length of term, cost and tenancy agreements are determined in advance through a process of negotiation. When leasing an office, it is important to have tenant representation to protect your interests when agreeing terms. Without this, leases will invariably be constructed to favour landlords, and land you with potentially huge costs further down the line.

Companies take leases on office space for a number of reasons. You may have outgrown the existing shared or serviced space, you may require more privacy or access to dedicated facilities. Whatever your reasoning, taking on a lease can be an equally exciting and daunting task. Location, length of term, size of space, neighbours, access – there are literally hundreds of considerations when committing to a lease on a work space.

Freehold

This is an outright purchase of your work space, whether it be a single office or, more commonly, an entire building. As with buying a residential property, this process invariably takes longer than leasing a space or moving into co-working. But the result is a work space that is owned outright by your company, that you are able to do with what you will.

Freehold purchases are becoming increasingly common in East London as companies recognise the long term investment value of owning their office in Tech City. Demand continues to grow in Shoreditch, and with it comes increasing rental costs and overheads. With this in mind, companies that are financially able are increasingly looking to freehold as the best option for their company’s future.

We hope this brief guide has helped to lift the fog on Tech City’s property market, and remember…

Shoreditch Office Space specialises in helping clients looking to lease or purchase work space on a freehold basis. Not only will we identify the best locations and properties based on your specifications, Shoreditch Office Space we will go to war on your behalf to secure the most tenant-friendly leases at the best possible price. For more information on how we work, please contact sean@shoreditchofficespace.com