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Office removals guide · City of London · 9 min read

Out-of-hours and weekend office moves in London in City of London

Most London office moves run Friday evening to Sunday, or overnight midweek, because managed buildings restrict goods-lift and loading-bay use during business hours. Out-of-hours crews cost more per hour, but the saving is measured in staff downtime avoided — a floor of 60 people idle for a day costs far more than the uplift on the move.

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 — City of London

Local read

What changes in City of London before you book

Everything below applies across London — these are the parts a move in this borough turns on. City of London covers EC1, EC2, EC3, EC4 and 10 named areas, and the building type, the lift and the loading bay decide most of what an office move here actually costs.

  • 25,555

    Businesses in City of London

  • 614,000

    People employed here

  • 71.4×

    Daytime workers per resident

  • 10

    Areas covered, each with its own guide

Office stock in City of London

Grade A towers and multi-tenant floors defines City of London: grade A towers and refurbished multi-let floors, glass-partitioned meeting suites, client-facing reception areas, high-spec washrooms and staffed hospitality space. The commercial weight sits around Aldgate, Bank and Cornhill, Barbican, Blackfriars. 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

City of London has 25,555 registered businesses — 4.3% of every business in Greater London — and 614,000 people employed on 2022 figures. 75.1% 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 Finance and insurance (32.4% of borough jobs), Professional and legal services (27.7% of borough jobs), Technology and information (14% of borough jobs).

Access, lifts and charges

Security passes and a permit-to-work, goods lift booked with building management, contractor induction before the first shift and a logged sign-in and sign-out on every visit. Congestion Charge and ULEZ, ring-of-steel camera controls, almost no free kerb — loading bays must be booked around office hours. Part of City of London 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

Managing agents and facilities teams buying for the whole building, plus tenant office managers buying for their own demised floor. In City of London 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

Out-of-Hours and Weekend Office Moves in London in full

Why buildings push moves out of hours

In a multi-let London building, the goods lift and the loading bay are shared. Building management protects the working day for tenants, so removals traffic is pushed to evenings and weekends and slots are allocated in blocks with an attendant on duty.

That constraint is usually helpful. An empty building means faster lift runs, no lobby congestion and no meetings interrupted, so a job that would take two disrupted days often lands in one uninterrupted night.

What out-of-hours actually costs

Expect an uplift on crew rates for evenings, and a larger one for Sundays and bank holidays. Buildings may add their own charges: a lift attendant, a security guard for the access window and, in some towers, an out-of-hours facilities call-out.

Weigh those against downtime. If sixty people lose a working day, the cost dwarfs the uplift, which is why the out-of-hours option is the default recommendation for anything above about twenty desks.

  • Evening and overnight crew uplift
  • Sunday and bank holiday premium rates
  • Building charges: lift attendant, security cover, out-of-hours facilities
  • Any bay suspension fee, charged per bay per day by the borough

Single-hit or phased?

A single-hit switchover moves everything in one window — cleanest, and the option the calendar usually wants. It needs a destination that is genuinely ready: cabling live, furniture in place, floor plan agreed and passes issued.

A phased move runs over two or three windows, typically department by department, and suits floors where fit-out is still finishing or where a service must stay live throughout. It costs more in total crew hours but removes the single point of failure.

Need the City of London 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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Telling staff what to do

Two communications do most of the work: a packing brief a week out with the crate deadline and desk-number instructions, and a return brief the day before with the new address, entry arrangements, floor plan and who to find on the morning.

Name a floor marshal per department for the first morning back. They handle the small things — a missing crate, a desk swap, a printer to add — while IT works the ports, and the day feels organised rather than improvised.

  • Packing brief: crate deadline, what IT handles, what staff pack
  • Clear-desk cut-off on the last working afternoon
  • Return brief: address, access, floor plan, marshals, support contacts
  • Floorwalk booked for the first two hours back

Verified Trustpilot reviews

What City of London businesses say

★★★★★

Very professional cleaners

Very professional cleaners, very kind! The over and hobs of the flat we are moving into were seriously dirty and they did an amazing job! They also cleaned an extra window for us. I would recommend and I would book again in a heartbeat!
Elisabetta Sicchiero ·
★★★★★
Sardar did a really nice job with the cleaning. Really happy, would definitely recommend
Sinita Maher ·

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

By area

This guide, localized across City of London 10 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 City of London 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 City of London, 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 City of London

Yes. The prices, RAMS and switchover timings in this guide are the ones we work to across City of London, including EC1, EC2, EC3, EC4. What varies is building access — goods lift booking, loading bay suspension with City of London Corporation and contractor induction — plus ULEZ and the Congestion Charge, and all of them are inside the written project price before you book.