What £1,050 covers
- Three or four crew, sized to the desk count and the lift
- The vehicle and the runs it takes, with fuel and mileage
- Dismantling and reassembling desks and shelving
- Crates for files and desk contents, delivered before the move
- Booking the goods lift and the loading bay with building management
- Sending our insurance certificates to your building direct
- The Congestion Charge at £18, ULEZ and any parking
- Goods in transit and public liability cover
Jobs we have priced
Four real office move jobs with the access at both ends, so you can find the one that looks like yours.
Clerkenwell to Old Street, six desks
Both buildings with goods lifts, move run on a Friday evening after six, monitors crated, desks dismantled and rebuilt overnight.
£1,050
Soho to Fitzrovia, four desks
Second floor walk-up above a restaurant with no lift and no loading bay, weekday afternoon, everything carried to a suspended bay on a side street.
£930
City of London to Canary Wharf, twelve desks
Two goods lifts booked, dock slot at the Canary Wharf end, Saturday, full crate service and IT disconnected by the client's own provider.
£1,560
Shoreditch to Hackney, three desks
Small studio, ground floor at both ends, weekday morning, desks and two filing cabinets, no crates needed.
£675
What the office size does to the price
| Situation | Price |
|---|---|
| One to five desksA studio, a small practice or a serviced office suite. Half a day with three crew. | £650 to £1,000 |
| Six to ten desksA full day or a full evening, crates delivered in advance, both lifts booked. | £950 to £1,600 |
| Eleven to twenty desksQuoted after a site visit rather than from a form. Usually split across two evenings. | £1,600 to £3,200 |
| Twenty desks and aboveA planned project with a survey, a phased schedule and a named contact on our side. | £3,200 to £6,500 |
What moves the figure
- Whether it runs out of hours+15% to 25%
- Most Central London buildings will not allow a move through the main lobby during office hours, so evenings and Saturdays are the norm rather than an upgrade. It costs more and it is usually the only option.
- The goods lift, and whether you get it to yourself+£145 to £435
- A lift shared with three other tenants doing a Friday move is the single largest time risk in an office job. Book it early and book it exclusively where the building allows.
- Crates, and how many+£5 to £9 a crate
- Delivered a few days ahead so your team packs their own desks. Cheaper than paying a crew to do it and faster on the night.
- IT, servers and comms+£400 to £2,000
- We move monitors, docks and desktops crated and wrapped. Decommissioning and recommissioning servers is a specialist job, and either your provider does it or we bring one in.
- A loading bay slot at either end£45 to £120 a day, at cost
- Managed buildings allocate dock slots and street addresses need a council suspension. Both need booking days ahead and both are passed through at cost.
- Storage between the two dates+£220 to £580
- Common when the new lease starts after the old one ends. Facility fees are paid to the facility, the moving in and out is ours.
Why office moves happen on Friday evenings
Almost every managed building in the City, Canary Wharf and the West End restricts goods movements to outside core hours. That means after six or at the weekend, through a service lift rather than the main lobby, with a dock slot booked in advance and insurance certificates lodged with building management before anyone arrives.
The practical result is that your move happens on a Friday evening and your team walks into a working office on Monday. It costs fifteen to twenty five per cent more than a weekday daytime move would, and for most Central London buildings there is no weekday daytime option to compare it against.
What building management will ask us for
A copy of our public liability and goods in transit certificates, usually with a minimum cover figure stated in your lease. A method statement for anything unusual. Names of the crew attending, sometimes with photo identification for the security desk. A booked dock slot and a booked lift.
We send those directly rather than routing them through you, and we do it as soon as the date is agreed rather than the week of. The most common cause of an office move being turned away at the door is paperwork that arrived on the day.
Crates, and why your team should pack their own desks
We deliver crates a few days ahead, one or two per desk, and people pack their own drawers, files and personal items. It costs five to nine pounds a crate and it saves paying a crew to guess which pile of paper matters.
Label them by destination desk rather than by origin. On the night, a crate marked with a new desk number gets carried to that desk. A crate marked with a name gets put in a corner and sorted out by someone on Monday morning.
What we do not do ourselves
Server decommissioning and recommissioning, structured cabling, and anything involving the fabric of the building. We move the hardware crated and wrapped, and either your IT provider handles the ends or we bring in a specialist and it is a separate line on the quote.
We also do not dispose of your old furniture as part of the move. Where you want it gone we quote clearance alongside, with the waste transfer documentation your landlord will ask for at the end of the lease.
How to bring the number down
Every one of these is something you can do rather than something we can discount.
- Pack the desks yourselves using crates we deliver in advance
- Book the goods lift at both ends as early as the date is agreed
- Move on a weekday evening rather than a Saturday where the building allows it
- Clear the furniture you are not taking before the move rather than transporting it twice
- Label crates by their destination desk, not by whose desk they came from
- Get the insurance certificates lodged with building management the week the date is set
- Have your IT provider disconnect and reconnect rather than adding a specialist to our quote
Office move costs: common questions
How much does a small office move cost in London?
Between £650 and £1,600 including VAT for an office of up to ten desks, with most landing near £1,050. One to five desks sits at £650 to £1,000. Six to ten desks sits at £950 to £1,600. Above ten desks we quote after a site visit rather than from a form, because the lift and the dock decide the schedule.
What does it cost per desk?
Roughly £110 to £190 a desk on a small office, and the rate falls as the office gets bigger because the fixed costs of the lift booking, the dock slot and the travel spread further. A three desk move costs more per desk than a twelve desk move.
Do you move offices out of hours?
Almost always, because most Central London buildings insist on it. Evenings after six and Saturdays are the norm, which adds fifteen to twenty five per cent over a daytime rate. For most managed buildings in the City and Canary Wharf there is no daytime option to choose instead.
Do you move IT equipment and servers?
We move monitors, docks, desktops and laptops, crated and wrapped. Server decommissioning and recommissioning is a specialist job with its own insurance, so either your IT provider handles both ends or we bring in a specialist and it appears as its own line at £400 to £2,000 depending on the rack.
Can you provide crates?
Yes, delivered a few days before at £5 to £9 a crate, and collected after. Your team packing their own desks is faster on the night and cheaper than paying a crew to do it, and it means nobody has to guess what mattered.
Will you deal with our building management?
Directly. We book the goods lift and the dock slot, and we send our public liability and goods in transit certificates to building management as soon as the date is agreed. Paperwork arriving on the day is the most common reason an office move gets turned away at the door.
Can you invoice the company rather than take card payment?
Yes. Business moves can be invoiced on standard terms rather than paid on completion. Where the job needs a dock slot or a council suspension paid in advance, we ask for that element up front because it is not refundable once booked.
Can you clear the furniture we are leaving behind?
Yes, quoted alongside the move rather than inside it. Landlords almost always want the space returned empty, and we provide the waste transfer notes as a registered carrier so you can evidence where it went at the end of the lease.
How we do the job itself
This page is about the money. The office and business moves page covers the method: the crew, the wrapping, the access planning and what tends to go wrong.
Prices by area
The band above holds across all 37 Central London areas we cover. What changes between them is the parking and the housing stock, which is what decides where in the band you land.