Manchester’s city centre office market saw its best first quarter take-up for five years as agents reported the momentum from a solid 2024 carrying on into the new year.
The Manchester Office Agents Forum (MOAF) said take-up reached 319,995 sq ft across 53 deals in Q1 2025, which it said was the best performance in a first quarter since 2020 and showed “a continued recovery and sustained demand for office space”.
Major deals included Trader Media’s commitment to 130,000 sq ft at Bruntwood SciTech’s 3 Circle Square, while there were three deals in the education sector, totalling 47,572 sq ft.
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The Q1 News follows what MOAF called an “active 2024”, which saw a total of 1.22 million sq ft transacted in the city centre “in line with the 10-year average”.
MOAF said: “The take-up results for Q1 2025 represent the best performance in a first quarter since 2020, indicating a continued recovery and sustained demand for office space.
“The outlook for the remainder of 2025 remains positive, with several sizable Grade A requirements under offer and a healthy pipeline of occupier demand. This trend suggests that Manchester's office market will continue to perform, driven by the demand for high-quality, refurbished workspace.”
Matt Shufflebottom, director in the Advisory and Transaction team at CBRE, said “The first quarter of the year has started strongly, and we expect this to continue across the remainder of 2025. Occupiers continue to focus on best-in-class workspace, and this is reflected in the take-up across 2024 and Q1 2025.
“Whilst new build availability is diminishing, Manchester has a healthy stock of high-quality refurbished workspace, which we expect to capture the majority of interest in the coming months and years until the next tranche of new build space is delivered. Encouragingly, we are having productive discussions with developers who are gearing up to commence the next wave of new build development".
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The out-of-town market in Greater Manchester also saw a recovery after a “subdued” 2024. MOAF’s report showed South Manchester recorded 129,206 sq ft across 63 deals – above the 5-year quarterly average. Key transactions included NES Group taking 9,900 sq ft at Bruntwood’s Foundation in Altrincham, while Close Brothers committed to 8,775 sq ft at Jackson House in Sale.
Salford Quays and Old Trafford saw take-up of 28,737 sq ft across 14 transactions which MOAF said was down on the 5-year average but “broadly in-line with last year’s Q1 performance”. Ket MediaCity deals saw Money Wellness taking 8,204 sq ft in Blue and Intelligent Lending Ltd taking 6,773 sq ft at Orange.
Matt Pickersgill, associate director at Avison Young, said: “After what was a fairly subdued 2024 there are some signs of a bounce back in the first quarter of this year with South Manchester recording its highest quarter of take-up in 15 months and back above the 5-year quarterly average.
“With a healthy number of larger out of town office requirements already circulated this year we anticipate a good proportion of these will also transact during the course of 2025.”
MOAF is made up of agents Avison Young, BE Group, CBRE, Colliers International, Canning O’Neill, Cushman & Wakefield, Edwards, Fisher German, Hallam Property Consultants, TSG Property Consultants, JLL, Knight Frank, LSH, OBI, Savills, and Sixteen.