Flexible lab space becomes reality as demand continues to grow

In February last year we identified an increasing opportunity for serviced lab space in London, and indeed the UK, as a result of growing demand for this type of space. Over the last 18 months, we have seen this prediction come to reality across the capital with a number of landlords planning or already on site delivering space.

Some prime examples include ARC Group’s Motherlabs at ARC West London in Hammersmith, Imperial College / Blenheim Chalcot’s Scalespace in White City and Kadans’ 20 Water Street at Canary Wharf. These spaces typically provide a range of 500-1,500 sq ft fitted lab rooms, together with a shared lab equipment room and supporting write-up and break-out spaces. Motherlabs and Scalespace completed earlier this year and have both proved very popular with occupiers, while 20 Water Street is due to be delivered early next year.

These schemes perfectly demonstrate how the market has moved on and not just recognised, but acted upon the rising demand for fitted lab space on flexible terms. It is already an established offer in the office market, and the life science sector has a similar demographic of entrance occupiers – those small businesses, start-ups and individuals who have an idea and need to be supported in the first part of their journey and as they scale before taking on more permanent lab space. This is where we are seeing the majority of demand for flexible lab space coming from. However, we are also seeing some interest from larger corporates who are looking to be close to the new talent entering the market – a similar trend to what we saw in the flexible office sector with tech occupiers.

By creating a flexible lab option, these forward-thinking landlords are filling in the missing piece within the journey of a life science occupier as they grow and scale. This is really important as it is enabling many of the companies trapped in the original three London academic incubator buildings at Ihub in White City, LBIC in Kings Cross and QMB in Whitechapel to move to bigger spaces, freeing up space for the next generation of start-ups.

As a result of flexible lab space becoming a reality in the London market, we are now also seeing many of the bigger schemes in the pipeline in Oxford and Cambridge planning to provide this type of space, thus establishing it further as a competing offer in the sector as we move forward.