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Office removals guide · Southwark · 10 min read

Office relocation costs in London: what actually drives the price in Southwark

A London office move is priced per project after a survey, not per hour. Up to 10 desks starts at £650 plus VAT, 11–25 desks at £1,450, 26–50 desks at £2,900 and 51–100 desks at £5,400, with phased relocations above 100 desks from £55 a desk. Crates are £3.50 each per week, IT reconnection £28 a workstation, and out-of-hours or weekend switchovers carry an 18% uplift.

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

Illustration of Hello Services movers using a London apartment tower loading bay and goods lift, with the concierge desk and a branded van in the bay behind them — Southwark

Local read

What changes in Southwark before you book

The guide below is the London-wide version. This panel is what changes once the move is inside this borough. Southwark covers SE1, SE5, SE15, SE16, SE17, SE21, SE22, SE24 and 14 named areas, and the building type, the lift and the loading bay decide most of what an office move here actually costs.

  • 18,190

    Businesses in Southwark

  • 296,000

    People employed here

  • 0.96×

    Daytime workers per resident

  • 14

    Areas covered, each with its own guide

Office stock in Southwark

SME suites above the high street defines Southwark: 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 Bermondsey, Canada Water, Elephant and Castle, London Bridge and Bermondsey Street. 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

Southwark has 18,190 registered businesses — 3.1% of every business in Greater London — and 296,000 people employed on 2022 figures. 80.3% 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 (24.1% of borough jobs), Administration and support (15.6% of borough jobs), Health and social care (10% 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. Riverside loading restrictions, red routes on the New Kent Road and CPZs from SE1 to Peckham. Part of Southwark sits inside the Congestion Charge zone and all of it is inside ULEZ, so both are quoted in the project price before you sign — never invoiced afterwards.

Who signs it off

Owners, practice managers and office administrators buying two or three visits a week on a short, plain-English agreement. In Southwark 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 Relocation Costs in London: What Actually Drives the Price in full

Why office moves are not quoted hourly

A householder can absorb an extra hour. A business cannot absorb an open-ended invoice on a purchase order, and finance will not approve one. So the whole commercial model is different: we survey both addresses, take the risk on how long the building will actually let us work, and quote a single figure.

That also changes who carries the cost of a slow lift or a late bay booking. On an hourly job it is you. On a surveyed project price it is us — which is precisely why the survey matters and why a quote given over the phone without one is usually a placeholder.

The desk bands, and what sits inside them

Desk count is the honest unit for an office move because it scales with crates, IT positions, furniture and crew all at once. Every band below includes the move plan, protection of lifts, floors and door frames, labelling, the RAMS and insurance pack, and the transport itself.

  • Up to 10 desks — from £650, three movers and a Luton, usually one evening
  • 11–25 desks — from £1,450, four movers and a 7.5 tonne vehicle, evening plus the following morning
  • 26–50 desks — from £2,900, six movers and two vehicles, Friday night to Sunday
  • 51–100 desks — from £5,400, eight to ten movers and three vehicles, full weekend switchover
  • 100+ desks — from £55 a desk, phased across consecutive weekends

The add-ons that move the number most

Two things reliably shift a quote: IT and timing. Workstation disconnect and reconnect at £28 a desk sounds small until you multiply it by 60, and a weekend switchover adds 18% — which is still almost always cheaper than the trading day it protects.

Crate hire at £3.50 per crate per week is the cheapest line on the sheet and the one most worth over-ordering slightly. Budget roughly two to three crates per desk, plus extras for filing and kitchens.

  • Crate hire — £3.50 per crate per week, delivered and collected
  • IT disconnect and reconnect — £28 per workstation; server and comms room from £480
  • Desk dismantle and rebuild — £18 per position
  • Business storage between leases — £22 per pallet per week
  • Furniture and WEEE clearance — £180 per load, transfer note included
  • Out-of-hours, weekend or bank holiday — 18% uplift on the project price

Need the Southwark 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 building costs that are not on the removal quote

Managing agents commonly charge for out-of-hours security cover, goods lift attendance and sometimes a refundable deposit against damage to common parts. None of that is within a mover's control, so ask both buildings early and put it in the budget as its own line.

Then there is dilapidations. Making good the old floor — removing partitions, patching cable trays, redecorating — is regularly a bigger number than the move itself and is negotiated with the landlord, not the mover. What we can do is document what left the building and when.

Verified Trustpilot reviews

What Southwark businesses say

★★★★★

Deep Clean Bungalow

The team of three young lads arrived from HELLO SERVICES at the scheduled time and started work to deep clean straight away. They were courteous, polite, very professional treated us and our bungalow and contents with the greatest respect. Also, they obviously had great pride in their work and turned our dull bungalow into a sparkling paradise. The booking process was easy, and their communication was good with both emails, phone calls and reminders. I would highly recommend them to friends and family. It was well worth the money we paid and was a great experience.
Carol NumberTwo ·
★★★★★
Kt19 team sardar cleaned my flat from top to bottom, very nice guys providing an excellent service. They are very friendly and I would highly recommend them to others
Fred Bremner ·

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

By area

This guide, localized across Southwark 14 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 Southwark 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 Southwark, 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 Southwark

Yes. The prices, RAMS and switchover timings in this guide are the ones we work to across Southwark, including SE1, SE5, SE15, SE16. What varies is building access — goods lift booking, loading bay suspension with London Borough of Southwark and contractor induction — plus ULEZ and the Congestion Charge, and all of them are inside the written project price before you book.