Top Virtual office Regional Locations in the UK for 2009

Birmingham, the UK's second city, came in with the most enquiries outside of London. Virtual offices in Manchester followed in 2nd with Leeds in 3rd position.

Below is a graph showing the top ten most popular virtual office locations, outside of London (note that the percentages are based on enquiries for these ten locations only):

Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, the top three most popular virtual locations outside of London, were among the UK's most business friendly cities in last year's UK Cities Monitor. The report, carried out by commercial property advisors Cushman & Wakefield, seeks views from top company executives to find out what they think of essential factors such as transport links, office accommodation and quality of life. Manchester finished second overall in the report, behind London, followed closely by Birmingham and Leeds.

Many locations within our virtual office top ten, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Scottish capital Edinburgh, are major cities that typically attract enquiries for both physical and virtual enquiries.

We compared the above virtual office enquiries with that of the physical office, for the first half of 2009. Unsurprisingly, some results are fairly similar - for example Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds were again in the top three for physical office space enquiries. But Edinburgh and Glasgow literally traded places, making Edinburgh more popular out of the two Scottish cities for virtual office space. In addition, popular virtual office locations Sheffield, Watford and Gloucester lost out to Reading, Bristol, and Liverpool.

However, while physical office space take-up has suffered since the start of the decline, partly due to many businesses seeking to downsize or reduce overheads by finding cheaper office space, the virtual office has held its own and sustained healthy growth over the last 6 months. Factors assisting this rise in virtual office take-up are low costs and flexibility, along with the added bonus that businesses can literally sign up to a virtual office anywhere in the UK - and are not just confined to locations that are within a commutable distance.