Guide
Office moving costs: why movers publish an hourly rate, not a price
Updated
You can find office move price-per-desk figures online. Most of them are one firm's average from a different city, and they will not survive contact with your building.
Why we do not publish a range
An office relocation is priced on hours, crew and vehicle movements. Two 40-desk moves in the same town can price very differently. One has a loading bay and a Saturday slot; the other has a single goods lift, a 6pm curfew and a long carry from the vehicle.
A published price per desk hides exactly the variables that decide the bill, so we publish the variables instead. Some movers do publish an hourly rate: 7 of the 115 removal firms' pages we read on 12 October 2026 print one. They run from £30 to £80 an hour, median £54.
Office moving costs per square foot
None of the 115 removal firms' pages we read on 12 October 2026 prices a move per square foot. Per square foot figures online belong to office fit-out, a contractor's building work, not a removal. A mover prices crew hours, vehicles and materials; floor area matters only through how much there is to pack and how far it is carried.
Source: Office Move Price Index, removal firms' own pages, read 12 October 2026
Office relocation cost in London
London movers that print a rate:
- Easyway Removals: from £30 an hour for self-loading to £80 an hour for a driver with three helpers.
- Removals London: from £50 an hour.
- London Moverz: £65 an hour for two men and a van, with a two-hour minimum. It puts a typical 5-person office move at 4 to 6 hours, £260 to £390.
Driving in adds charges a mover will pass on. The Congestion Charge is £18 a day if paid on the day or in advance. The ULEZ charge is £12.50 a day for a vehicle that does not meet its standards.
A cost breakdown of office relocation
- Crew hours: the core of every quote. The 7 firms that print an hourly rate range from £30 to £80 an hour, median £54, and most set a minimum of two hours.
- Crate hire: charged per crate per week from delivery to collection, for example from £1.25 + VAT a crate and £2.50 + VAT an IT crate at Just Removals London.
- Confidential shredding: old files are usually shredded, not moved, for example £18 a bag for 1 to 10 bags at Bradshaw Shredding.
- Disposal: old furniture and IT are business waste. Whoever takes it must be a registered waste carrier, and a new registration in England costs the carrier £191.02, so ask to see the registration.
- Access and timing: evening and weekend crews, lift bookings and long carries add hours rather than separate lines.
- Dilapidations: priced by a building surveyor and a fit-out contractor, never inside the removal quote (see below).
The four questions that make quotes comparable
- Has the firm surveyed both buildings? A price given without seeing the destination is a placeholder. Movers who survey will tell you things the landlord did not, like the lift booking rules.
- What hours does the price assume? Weekday, evening and weekend crews are priced differently. Get the assumption in writing so a landlord's Saturday-only rule does not become a variation.
- What is in and what is out? IT disconnection, crate hire period, dismantling and rebuilding desks, wall fixings, disposal. Each of these is a line somewhere, and a cheap quote is usually one that has left several of them out.
- Who carries the risk? Insurance limits, single-item limits, and who is liable if a server does not come back up on Monday morning.
Where cheap quotes get expensive
- Crate hire running on. Hire is charged from delivery to collection. If the new fit-out slips two weeks, the crates are still on hire.
- Waiting time. Crews charged by the hour and a goods lift booked by another tenant is the most common overrun on a city centre move.
- Disposal treated as an afterthought. Old furniture, cabling and IT are business waste with paperwork attached, and a mover who has not priced it will price it later.
- Dilapidations mistaken for removals. Stripping out partitions, cabling and floor boxes to satisfy a schedule of dilapidations is building work, not a removal, and it is priced by a building surveyor and a fit-out contractor.
Dilapidations sit alongside the move, not inside it
Most commercial leases require you to hand the building back in a defined condition. That obligation, and your landlord's schedule of dilapidations, is a separate cost stream with its own advisers and timetable. Movers do not price it and surveyors do not move furniture. Get both quoted early; make sure neither assumes the other strips out the cabling.
The only number that means anything is a quote against your own two buildings. Use the form on this site and you will have several to compare.