It’s back to the London office: more staff back at desks (but not on Fridays)

PA

The great return to the office is gathering pace with occupancy in London passing the 40 per cent mark for the first time since November, according to new figures.

Occupancy has stayed above that level every working day apart from Fridays, according to data from office sensors company Metrikus. Last Wednesday it hit 49.15 per cent, the highest since the start of the pandemic last March.

The proportion of people back at their desks in the City, Docklands, the West End and Midtown has been steadily picking up since lows of less than 20 per cent in January.

In spring last year during the first lockdown it fell to single digits after Boris Johnson ordered employees to work from home if they could to halt the spread of Covid-19, leaving central London a deserted “ghost town.”

Michael Grant, operations officer at Metrikus, which uses sensors in the lobbies and floors of office buildings to detect movement, said: “The data from last few weeks indicate that occupancy levels in offices are back to where they were in autumn 2020 — but what lies ahead is uncharted territory.

“We’re watching to see whether the trend of growth of around 1.7 points per week that we’ve seen since February will continue to accelerate. This peak comes a week ahead of our previous best guess. Rather than spikes that track specific events, such as the return of children to school, the steady growth in the index seems to show that the lifting of restrictions has slowly increased the appetite for some workers to return to the office.

“There’s a major opportunity to do more work to understand what impact the pandemic has had on working habits. The most striking thing is how similar the patterns of occupancy are to pre-lockdown levels, albeit on a smaller scale: Tuesday and Wednesday regularly swap places as the busiest day of the week, and Fridays are the least popular. As we look to occupy offices less densely employers might look to incentivise staff to come in on Friday to reduce pressure on more other days.”

Edward Griffin, of Workpad, which specialises in converting listed buildings into offices for small businesses, said: “Demand is up 20 per cent on pre-Covid levels in areas such as Soho, Fitzrovia and Marylebone. We forecast that by autumn we will back to where we were in terms of occupancy.”

But Andrew Mawson, of consultants Advanced Workplace Associates, said: “The danger is that on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday the place will be mobbed and on Mondays and Fridays it’s going to be empty. A smart move might be trying to tilt the playing field in terms of transport tariffs on a Monday or a Friday, and bars and restaurants could also make it more attractive to be in London on shoulder days.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in