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Office removals guide · Richmond upon Thames · 11 min read

Office move checklist for London: a 12-week plan in Richmond upon Thames

Give a London office move twelve weeks: weeks 12–9 for lease dates, budget and surveys, weeks 8–5 for the move plan, RAMS, IT and telecoms lead times, weeks 4–2 for crate delivery, floor plans and staff briefings, and the final fortnight for the switchover itself and the snagging week that follows. Anything under four weeks is possible but costs more and carries real risk on lift bookings and comms provisioning.

By The Hello Services commercial moves team · Published 2026-08-27 · Updated 2026-08-27

Illustration of Hello Services cleaning London offices out of hours — a City tower floor with desks being sanitised, a converted warehouse studio being vacuumed, a period West End office being wiped down, a consumables and recycling round outside, and a branded van in a permit bay — Richmond upon Thames

Local read

What changes in Richmond upon Thames before you book

Same guide, different buildings. Here is the commercial reality across this borough. Richmond upon Thames covers TW1, TW2, TW9, TW10, TW11, TW12, SW13, SW14, SW15 and 11 named areas, and the building type, the lift and the loading bay decide most of what an office move here actually costs.

  • 13,620

    Businesses in Richmond upon Thames

  • 82,000

    People employed here

  • 0.42×

    Daytime workers per resident

  • 11

    Areas covered, each with its own guide

Office stock in Richmond upon Thames

SME suites above the high street defines Richmond upon Thames: small office suites above retail, dental and medical practices, solicitors and accountants, salons, clinics and studios in single-storey or first-floor units with no lift and no dedicated bin store. The commercial weight sits around Richmond, Twickenham. That decides crate counts, how many goods-lift bookings a switchover needs, and whether it runs over one evening or a full weekend.

Who moves here

Richmond upon Thames has 13,620 registered businesses — 2.3% of every business in Greater London — and 82,000 people employed on 2022 figures. 89.7% of those firms are micro businesses under ten staff, so most moves booked here are ten to fifty desks over a weekend rather than full-tower programmes. The biggest employers are Professional and legal services (14% of borough jobs), Retail and wholesale (13.6% of borough jobs), Hospitality and food service (11.6% of borough jobs).

Access, lifts and charges

A single street door with your own key, no concierge and no goods lift — the practical issues are stairs, bin day and where the van sits for twenty minutes. Conservation-area streets with narrow entrances, flood-zone riverside loading limits and strict CPZs in Richmond and Twickenham. Richmond upon Thames is outside the Congestion Charge zone and inside ULEZ, so the access cost that matters here is a loading bay or bay suspension booked with London Borough of Richmond upon Thames — about ten working days' notice.

Who signs it off

Owners, practice managers and office administrators buying two or three visits a week on a short, plain-English agreement. In Richmond upon Thames that usually means one named contact signing off the switchover window, the building manager approving the RAMS and insurance pack, and the IT lead owning the comms room. We survey both addresses before quoting, so the figure on the purchase order is the figure invoiced.

Commercial figures: ONS UK Business Counts — local units by industry and employment size band, 2024 (Nomis NM_141_1) (2024) and ONS Business Register and Employment Survey, 2022 (Nomis NM_189_1) (2022), borough level — the smallest geography ONS publishes both series for. Resident population: ONS Census 2021.

The guide

Office Move Checklist for London: A 12-Week Plan in full

Weeks 12–9: dates, budget and surveys

Everything downstream hangs off two dates: when the new floor is available for fit-out, and when the old lease ends with dilapidations complete. Get both in writing before you brief anyone internally, because they rarely align neatly and the gap decides whether you need business storage.

Book removal surveys at both addresses in this window. A surveyor counts desks, IT positions, storage units and anything unusual — safes, plan chests, server racks, a kitchen — then reads the access at both ends. That is what turns a guess into a fixed project price you can put in the budget.

  • Confirm lease end, dilapidations scope and new-floor access dates
  • Book removal surveys at both addresses and get fixed project prices
  • Check the destination building's rules: lift booking, out-of-hours access, insurance limits
  • Give telecoms and broadband providers notice — this is the single longest lead time in the whole plan

Weeks 8–5: the move plan, RAMS and IT

Approve one supplier and lock the switchover weekend. In London the last weekend of a month and every quarter-end go first, so a date held now is worth more than a slightly cheaper quote taken later.

Your mover issues the method statement, risk assessment and insurance certificates in this window, because most managing agents want them at least five working days ahead and some want them signed off by building management before passes are issued.

Run IT in parallel. Circuits, patching and any new cabling at the destination need to be live and tested before move weekend — a crew can rebuild a floor in a night, but nobody can conjure a leased line on a Sunday.

  • Sign the move plan and confirm the switchover window with both buildings
  • Issue RAMS and insurance certificates to your managing agent
  • Confirm structured cabling, patching and circuit live dates with your IT provider
  • Decide what is being disposed of — desking, pedestals, screens — and get it quoted as part of the move

Weeks 4–2: crates, floor plans and people

Crates arrive about a week before the move with labels and a seat-numbered destination plan. Give staff a fixed pack-down deadline — end of business the day before the move, not the morning of it — and make it clear that personal items and desk plants travel with them.

Publish the destination floor plan with seat numbers on it. Every crate, monitor bag and pedestal gets that number, which is what makes a rebuilt floor findable at 08:00 on Monday rather than a treasure hunt.

Brief reception, security and cleaners at both buildings, and tell clients and suppliers the address is changing. Update the Google Business Profile, invoices, letterheads and email footers on a date you set, not ad hoc.

  • Crates and IT bags delivered, labels issued, packing deadline announced
  • Seat-numbered floor plan circulated to staff and to the move crew
  • Confirm lift slots, loading bays and out-of-hours access at both ends
  • Book the clearance load for redundant furniture and WEEE

Need the Richmond upon Thames figure in writing for the board pack?

A free site survey covers lifts, loading bays and out-of-hours windows, and produces a fixed written quote with method statement and RAMS.

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The switchover weekend and the week after

Loading starts after close of business. Protection goes down on lifts, floors and door frames first, then crates and IT travel, then furniture. At the destination the floor is built to the plan and workstations reconnected so a sample of desks can be powered up and tested before the crew leaves.

Keep the snagging week deliberately light on meetings. Expect a handful of missing cables, one monitor arm that will not fit and at least one department that wants to move two desks. Empty crates are collected within five working days, and the waste transfer note for anything cleared goes into the dilapidations file.

Verified Trustpilot reviews

What Richmond upon Thames businesses say

★★★★★

Excellent service

Excellent service , I’ve used them twice recently and delighted with the results and the quality and professionalism of the service. Treated a particularly difficult 15 years stair carpet and it came up like new.
Ian McLaughlin ·
★★★★★

Very happy with end of tenancy clean

Very happy with the end of tenancy cleaning provided by Sardar. He went above and beyond and I would definitely recommend him and the HelloServices team!
Brooke ·

Reviews are quoted verbatim from our public Trustpilot profile, where the full rating history is open to check.

By area

This guide, localized across Richmond upon Thames 11 areas

Every area below has its own version of this guide with local building stock, loading bay and access notes.

Who wrote this page

Reviewed by Sarbaz Hassan, Operations Director — .

We run office switchovers across Richmond upon Thames every month, from ten-desk micro moves to full-floor weekend programmes.

  • Company no. 11855405
  • VAT no. GB 331 4560 12
  • Goods-in-transit & public liability insured
  • DBS-checked crews
  • Licensed waste carrier

Fixed office move quotes in Richmond upon Thames, with RAMS attached

Desk count, both addresses, lift and loading bay access and your target switchover weekend — that is all we need to price it.

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Questions

Quick answers for Richmond upon Thames

Yes. The prices, RAMS and switchover timings in this guide are the ones we work to across Richmond upon Thames, including TW1, TW2, TW9, TW10. What varies is building access — goods lift booking, loading bay suspension with London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and contractor induction — plus ULEZ, and all of them are inside the written project price before you book.