Manchester might run out of new office space in the next few years - should we worry?

Shortly before Christmas, Andy Burnham read something ‘sobering’ one expert believes could be ‘a barrier for how we grow the city’.

"I was shown a report this week that said if things stay as they are, Greater Manchester might run out of office space by 2027,” the mayor said. “There'll be investors wanting to come here but there won't be available space because if we're moving at the pace we're moving at, we'll have that problem. So that was quite a sobering read.”

The identity and full contents of that report is unknown, but multiple insiders clarified exactly what Mr Burnham meant: Manchester city centre could run out of new office space in the coming years.

Demand for offices is so strong because ‘Manchester is a place of high investor confidence’, according to council leader Bev Craig, meaning ‘we attract major international businesses to the city, alongside a very healthy start-up and SME community of businesses’.

She added: “After economic challenges since Covid, building across the country slowed. Thankfully in Manchester we have bucked the national trend.

“We know without building more, we will see a diminishing supply of readily available Grade A office space, so we will continue to work with partners and the development community to bring forward future office investment opportunities in the city to ensure we can meet demand to support Manchester's ongoing growth ambition to bring more jobs to our city in 2025."

New offices drying up could be ‘a barrier for how we grow the city’, according to Colin Thomason, executive director of commercial real estate giants CBRE.

The company is the investment advisor for the £840 million Greater Manchester Property Venture Fund (GMPVF), an offshoot of the Greater Manchester