Pivoting around ‘Silicon Roundabout’ (known as such since about 2007) and locatable on what3words as ‘bustling, tech-y and sociable’, Old Street EC1 has been a fertile ground for mushrooming tech occupiers. The first arrived about 20 years ago as start-ups, taking small offices on cheap leases. At that time the area offered easy access to the City core market but at rents more than half the price, while still having strong connectivity to the rest of London via Liverpool Street Station and King’s Cross, accessible in two minutes on the Northern Line.

Old Street also benefitted from being next door to where the talent lived. The more tech companies that arrived and thrived in the area, the more people wanted to live and work there, and it quickly became one of the most sought-after locations in London. Offices were redeveloped, or built new – including White Collar Factory, The Bower, 160 Old Street and Oliver's Yard – and with better space came an ever greater breadth of occupiers locating to the area and rents continuing to increase.

The Old Street of today sees some of London’s best office buildings command rents of over £70 per sq ft and a broad occupier base including Amazon, Adobe, and Checkout.com. Is it bustling, tech-y and sociable? Absolutely. But there’s more to Old Street than just tech.

Old Street in three questions

Best spot for a break from the bustle?

JD: Trade café for an oat latte and the best cheese toasties in London. For a team lunch we would head to Gloria for some Italian flamboyance, or Sagardi for delicious meat from the Spanish Basque region.

JG: Once upon a time it was Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, which opened in 2002 at the beginning of the tech revolution in the area. Today it’s more like The Hoxton Shoreditch, Nightjar, Manteca, Howl At The Moon and Old Street Records.

Great hotel to make a weekend of it?

JD: There are loads of cool hotels in the area which I think is testament to what Old Street has become. It’s so much more than a fringe office sub-market and city trippers really add to the vibrancy of the place. You’ve got The Curtain, Montcalm, The Hoxton, Nobu and Mondrian. Also adding to the mix will be the new art’otel which will bring 50,000 sq ft of new offices as part of the wider development, so obviously with my agent’s hat on I’m excited about this.

JG: Talking about our art’otel office instruction, we are preserving two original Banksy artworks which were previously on the site and are being visibly integrated into the scheme – it will become an iconic building I suspect.

Favourite fact about the area?

JD: It’s not only cool offices, hotels and restaurants that the area is famed for. The first theatre in London was located in Shoreditch. Called The Theatre, it was built in Finsbury Fields in 1576 and was circular in shape to allow the audience to stand around the stage. 

JG: The Eagle Pub is a good place for a drink after work but it’s also name-checked in one of our best-known nursery rhymes: 'Up and down the City Road, in and out The Eagle; that's the way the money goes, Pop! goes the weasel'. Today, opposite The Eagle, you will find 148,048 sq ft of sustainable, tech-focused office space at The Arc, which Savills is marketing.

Further information

Contact James Gillett or Jade Dedman

An occupiers guide to London in three questions: Fitzrovia