Bruntwood SciTech's signing of Auto Trader to 130,000 square feet at 3 Circle Square helped Manchester city centre to its best first quarter office take-up performance since 2020, according to analysis by the Manchester Office Agents Forum.
MOAF found the inner city recorded 319,995 square feet of lettings across 53 deals in the first three months of the year following an active 2024, when 1.22 million square feet transacted in the city centre, in line with the 10-year average.
The agents forum argued Auto Trader's deal "underscores the attractiveness of Manchester's office market to major tech companies", while education was also a major player in the first quarter as three deals totalling 47,572 square feet completed.
"This sector's consistent demand highlights the importance of educational institutions in the city's office market," the MOAF report 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," it added.
The Forum said the outlook for the remainder of the year "remains positive", with "several sizable Grade A requirements" under offer and a "healthy pipeline of occupier demand". It added that the Manchester office market was being "driven by the demand for high-quality, refurbished workspace".
Matt Shufflebottom, director in the advisory and transaction team at CBRE, said in a statement: "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."
Out-of-town
MOAF's analysis shows that South Manchester recorded 129,206 square feet of office transactions across 63 deals, measuring above the five-year quarterly average. Key transactions included environmental enforcement firm NES Group taking 9,900 square feet at Foundation in Altrincham, a Bruntwood scheme. Merchant banking group Close Brothers also committed to 8,775 square feet at Jackson House in Sale.
Take-up in Salford Quays and Old Trafford came in at 28,737 square feet across 14 transactions. Although this was down on the five-year average, MOAF highlighted that it is "broadly in line" with last year’s first performance.
The largest deals took place at Landsec's Media City with credit counselling service Money Wellness taking 8,204 square feet in Blue and credit broker Intelligent Lending signed for 6,773 square feet at Orange. Landsec took full control of the site in November, buying out Peel Group.
Matt Pickersgill, associate director at Avison Young, added: "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 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.