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London’s towers remain popular and are reaching record rents; how can occupiers make sure they’re able to occupy the space that they want?
London’s towers are defying gravity. Vacancy in the City’s high-rise market is scarce, prime rents have surged to new highs, and the best floors are being secured earlier than ever. For occupiers who want height, views and brand prestige, the race now starts years before these buildings are due for completion.
Across City towers, the vacancy rate currently stands at 2.9%. When we treat under-offer space as unavailable, this falls to 2.2%: a clear sign of ongoing absorption. Scarcity is even more pronounced at the top end as prime towers show just 0.9% vacancy, and only 0.2% once current under-offers are excluded.
In the final quarter of 2025, prime rents moved to £117.64 per sq ft, a 14% rise on Q3 and up 18% when compared to Q4 2024. This step-change was propelled by Q4 lettings on the upper floors at 1 Leadenhall, 8 Bishopsgate, 22 Bishopsgate, and The Scalpel, alongside a pre-let at Edge London Bridge. The combination of height, best-in-class specification, amenities and brand visibility is commanding a clear premium and it is resetting benchmarks for tower floors across the City.
40 Leadenhall has proven incredibly popular during the build phase, and has been an excellent illustration of where the market is heading. The City’s top towers are being secured well ahead of completion, and only early movers will capture the next generation of best in class tower space.
The most space-hungry occupiers are changing their playbook. Lead times before lease expiry have stretched as scarcity bites. In 2022, commitments were made an average of 2.87 years ahead of lease expiry. This dipped slightly in 2023 to 2.50 years, but surged in 2024 to 3.65 years, and in 2025 reached 4.02 years. Already across central London, 21% of refurbishments and developments over 150,000 sq ft scheduled for 2026–2029 have been pre-let, with a further 4% under offer. This shift is driven by a constrained development pipeline and the flight-to-quality trend that concentrates demand into a small subset of best-in-class towers. For the largest occupiers, early engagement is no longer optional, it’s essential.
Larger firms looking for prestige tower space with commanding views will increasingly have to look to the next generation of towers under construction, or even schemes further out in the pipeline. With the lack of space currently available, pre-letting becomes the only viable route. In 2026, the prime towers under construction, including Edge London Bridge, 2 Finsbury Avenue, 50 Fenchurch Street and the refurbishment of Broadgate Tower, will be the battlegrounds for the next phase of tower leasing. This deepening pre-let cycle should also support further prime rental growth, with landlords holding scarce, best-in-class space and pricing power firmly on their side.
Contact Ed Robinson or Catherine Facer
Find out more about the benefits and challenges in the City of London here
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