Savills ventures into flexible office market

The listed agency is the latest property company to offer flexible managed workspaces with its UK dedicated service, PIVOT.

Joining the likes of CBRE, British Land, and The Crown Estate, Savills will provide landlords with turnkey office spaces for customers looking for 40-150 workstations.

Savills PIVOT is led by director Charlie Wardroper, who has spent the past 6 years in the growing sector spending time at both IWG’s serviced office branch, Regus, and workspace innovation company, Instant Group. He has more than 30 years’ experience specialising in the office sector across the UK and Europe.

Wardroper said the launch of Savills PIVOT is “perfectly timed given the structural shift we have seen across all office markets.”

He added: “PIVOT affords landlords an alternative way to cater to those customers who don’t want conventional space and/or prefer not to be a customer of a serviced office operator.”

Savills hopes the new service will give customers more choice around the branding/design of office spaces, as well as IT systems and facility management services, with it all being delivered in six to eight weeks.

Although yet to release the cost of a PIVOT space, Savills is looking to offer the service at a fixed all-inclusive price. The first few offices are set to open in London before launching nationally.

Jeremy Bates, EMEA head of occupational markets at Savills, said the flex market has “matured considerably over recent years” and is now a “recognised part of occupiers’ workplace strategy.”

He added: “PIVOT creates a new opportunity for landlords to reposition existing space in order to better align their offer to a wider tenant mix, monetise and prevent longer voids.”

PIVOT will have to compete with many offering similar services, including global surveyor CBRE’s Hana, which launched in November last year, developer British Land’s Storey, IWG’s Spaces and Regus, Knotel and many more.