Office take-up across the UK’s 'big six' regional cities of Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester fell just short of 1m sq ft in the third quarter, with activity so far this year on par with the five-year average.

Bristol’s Welcome Building. Credit: Ben Dale Photography

Savills’ Big Six report recorded 948,771 sq ft of take-up in Q3 2025, marginally down on the five-year Q3 average, although a number of regions saw individual rises in activity, notably Bristol.

Across 2025, the big six cities recorded 2.68m sq ft of office take-up, which is on par with the five-year average, and Savills has predicted an increase in activity in the final quarter of the year. It expects Q4 take-up to exceed 1m sq ft, resulting in an expected year-end figure of around 3.84m sq ft.

Bristol had the most impressive performance of the cities in Q3 with 227,767 sq ft transacted – a 164% increase year on year and 168% above the five-year average.

This was led by Hargreaves Lansdown’s 90,000 sq ft deal at the Welcome Building and Birkett’s 8,500 sq ft deal at EQ, which set a new headline rent of £60/sq ft, the highest in the big six citites.

In terms of the number of deals done, Bristol and Birmingham topped the table with a 70% and 55% rise respectively in the number of Q3 deals YOY, while Manchester recorded the largest single deal of Q1 to Q3 with Autotrader’s 130,000 sq ft lease at 3 Circle Square.

James Evans, national head of office agency at Savills, said: “In spite of continued challenging trading conditions and uncertainty associated with a late Budget, these take-up figures emphasise a remarkable resilience in the sector.

“It is likely year-end figures will track long-term average.”

Savills’ analysis also revealed that the professional services and technology, media and telecoms (TMT) sector continues to dominate, accounting for 19% of all take-up.

Evans added: “Slow decision-making remains a threat to speed of transactions. Looking towards 2026, a lack of new development may hamper take-up, but this in turn presents significant opportunity for repositioned assets and rental growth.”

In July, a report from Avison Young revealed that the UK’s nine biggest regional office markets had recorded their strongest H1 take-up since 2019.