Follow these steps to find the perfect office for your new business.

It started with an epiphany moment…which sparked an idea…which grew into a plan – and after a lot of hard work and persistence – blossomed into a bona fide business venture. Now you find yourself with a team to look after and you need to find them a home. But where do you start? With so many different styles of office on the market, which should you go for?

As ever, we are here to help.

Find the right location

This might sound obvious, but location is one of the most important factors to consider. It can affect everything, from employee happiness to how your company is perceived by clients. A HQ in a city centre location can work wonders for status, but will you be able to find somewhere within budget? Here are a couple of location pointers based on our knowledge of the current market:

• Cities like Birmingham (£174) Nottingham (£183) , Sheffield (£148) and Liverpool (£199) are competitively priced in terms of office space, compared to cities like London (£567), Manchester (£254) and Oxford (£383).

*Costs are per calendar month averages

This brand new business hub is located in the popular Birmingham Colmore Business District.

• Renting in an area popular with other companies in your industry can open up loads of opportunities for networking and skills sharing. Bristol and nearby Bath, for instance, are renowned for being tech hubs in the UK, and Nottingham is paving the way for medical research startup companies.

Choose a supportive environment

Lots of flexible office space providers go above and beyond to help their occupiers – many workspaces are more like growing communities than mere places to work. If business support and access to a large and diverse member network sounds good to you, a serviced office or coworking space could be just what you’re looking for. These spaces often host networking events and lectures, and have a community team on standby to help with the daily running of the space.

Valerie’s Story

Valerie Aelbrecht, founder of food startup ProToGo, joined coworking space Ministry of Startups in Shoreditch around a year ago and has since seen her business go from strength to strength.

“First of all we have a very strong community management. The management team connect people, organise a lot of ‘bonding-events’ and help you with any kind of challenge you’re facing. I’m a food business and I was therefore inneed of a good commercial kitchen. In our office building we had a canteen-kitchen that had not been used for years.

Together with Kitchup, another startup within the space that specialises in renting out commercial kitchens, they revamped the space into a commercial kitchen and now I’m renting it. If you have questions about anything, you can  just walk into an office and start talking to other founders. Easy as that! For me coworking’s made a world of difference and I would recommend it to anyone, especially sole founders like myself.

Some workspaces are specifically designed for startups and offer investment opportunities. Read our blog post on the difference between accelerators and incubators to find out more.

Pick a space in which to grow

Why are serviced offices and coworking spaces the best option for startups? Flexible terms. In a traditional ‘leased’ office, you can be tied into a contract for three years or more. That’s fine for large corporates who know where they’re heading, but startups require flexibility and room to maneuver.

You can sign up for space in a SO/ CS for as little as a month, giving you time to find your feet, decide whether the space is for you, and importantly, scale up or down with short notice. The fact that these offices are fully furnished and fitted with WiFi etc. makes acquiring more deskspace quick and easy.

This office on Bloomsbury Way charges a monthly rental fee, the price of which also includes services, internet, membership, and extras like tea!