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Rise in Serviced Office Tenants Supports Scotland’s Return to Growth.

According to reports in today’s Herald (Scotland), the influential Markit Scotland Purchasing Managers Index has revealed that the Scottish economy has finally found its feet again after being hit hard by the recession – a fact which appears to be supported by statistics from officebroker.com showing the number of new business entering serviced office space grew throughout Scotland in January and February 2010.

In 2009 Scotland was 1 of only 3 areas to experience a decline in the number of business entering serviced offices - occurring despite the UK recording a 13% increase overall.

With serviced offices often acting as cost effective, easily managed breeding ground for SME’s and business start-ups, the decline serviced office tenants throughout Scotland added weight to concerns that the entrepreneurial spirit was struggling to tread water in 2009.

But as the Markit report revealed signs of growth so did the seemingly dormant breeding ground of the serviced office market. Beginning in January 2010 the number of serviced office tenants increased by 63% compared to January 2009 while February recorded an even greater response – increasing by 180% on the levels recorded in February 2010. Further good news from February was that the average number of workstations be taken by new tenants increased by 11% - meaning that not only were businesses returning to the market but they are showing signs of doing so in greater size.

On the flip side of the coin, positive news for the providers of serviced offices also appeared to break ground in February when workstation prices emerged from a five month slump to register an increase.

A full review of the serviced office market in Scotland will be available in April when officebroker.com releases its quarterly Serviced Office Review covering Scotland. A copy of the Serviced Office Review: Scotland Q4 09 can be downloaded from the stats & facts section of officebroker.com. To visit this page now click HERE

Published by Simon on Monday, 08 March 2010 at 3:49 PM

2 Comments

B3CPres on March 08 2010 at 9:14 PM

This is interesting. Does the difference between Scotland and most English regions mean that Scotland's economy is separating from England's, or has it always been like that? If is is diverging, does the Scottish government have anything to do with it?

Simon on March 09 2010 at 10:24 AM

Based on the serviced office market, the last few years have shown Scotland to certainly lag behind other areas of the UK. But rather than Scotland operating “on its own terms” I think it is more a case of simply being slower to respond. It will be interesting when I come to produce the Q1 report to see how Scotland compares to the rest of the UK is this positive growth continues.

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