Tomorrow’s World: London’s Future Businesses
Firms at the cutting edge of innovation will form the next wave of demand for London offices.
2 minutes to read
London has successfully positioned itself as a world-class innovation economy, with technology and creative clusters firmly established alongside the traditional financial, insurance and professional industry hubs.
The capital has the vibrancy necessary to draw in all types of skilled workers, which in turn persuades new industries that they should locate in London. The lesson of the last decade is that London must continuously attract firms and workers at the forefront of economic and technology change.
Below are the firms and industries we see leading the next wave of innovation, generating future office demand.
- BORN-AGAIN START-UPS - A growing trend is established companies wanting to reintroduce the start-up culture into their existing operations. Moving offices to a more vibrant district is often seen as part of the solution. Several mature tech and media firms in London have already adopted the ‘born-again start-up’ strategy.
- ROBOTICS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) - The next wave of the technology revolution is to be trail blazed by companies operating in robotics and AI, as testing continues on autonomous cars and commercial drones. With London already an established technology hub, we see robotics and AI start-ups favouring the capital, as computer simulation means more testing and development can occur in an office-type environment.
- RAINMAKER LAUNCH PADS - Some legal firms in London have long operated systems whereby a partner in London wins work that is emailed to a junior member of staff in a regional office who does the actual drafting of documents. This allows the firm to leverage the access to clients and high value rainmakers in the capital, but with the lower operating costs in the regions. The approach could be applied to other industries.
- RE-CENTRALISING FINANCE - Fintech is leading the way in financial innovation. However, when acquiring new office space such firms are encountering higher rents in places like Shoreditch and Clerkenwell, as they compete for a diminishing pool of high quality space. Yet for fintech the long-term benefits of clustering with companies producing video games or phone apps is limited in scope, and there are potential benefits from being near to their finance sector customers. This creates the logic of fintech forming its own cluster, with the City Core offering the advantage of bringing it into the finance world proper.
- SCIENCE IN THE CITY - Scientific R&D has typically been associated with out-of-town business parks, particularly around Cambridge and Abingdon. However, recent years have seen hi-tech firms moving into London, as companies relocated to where talented staff wanted to live.