^{Source: Savills Research}

■ Great Portland Estates let the 2nd (14,624 sq ft) and 5th (10,587 sq ft) floors at 30 Broadwick Street, W1 to The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Jagex respectively, with both tenants signing 10-year leases. BCG are paying a rent of £88.50 per sq ft, while Jagex are paying £107.50 per sq ft, a record rent for Soho.

■ Elsewhere, Airwair International which operates the Dr Martens brand, acquired 23,470 sq ft at Camden Wharf, NW1. The site will be used as Dr Martens new headquarters with the retailer signing a 10-year lease at a rent of £59.50 per sq ft.

■ We have seen a significant increase in activity from the Retail & Leisure firms in 2016, with the sector accounting for 12% of year-to-date take-up compared to just 5% in 2015.

^{Source: Savills Research}

■ Supply rose slightly from 4.16m sq ft at the end of October to 4.17m sq ft at the end of November. This has resulted in the vacancy rate rising to 3.5%, however, this is still considerably below the 10-year average vacancy rate of 4.3%. 76% of current supply is of a Grade A standard, while 18% is tenant release space.

■ Looking forward, 46% of 2017's development pipeline has already been pre-let, leaving just 1.3m sq ft of speculative completions.

■ Encouragingly, 301,849 sq ft went under offer in November, the highest monthly total of the year. This has bought the total amount of space under-offer to 606,050 sq ft which is in line with the 10-year average.

■ 2016 total annual take-up in the West End is on course to be just below 4m sq ft, considerably above the 10-year average annual take-up level of 3.6m sq ft (Graph 2).

^{Source: Savills Research}

■ In a year beset by political and economic shocks, the relatively high level of take-up in 2016 demonstrates the strength and diversity of the West End office market. Although uncertainty is set to persist throughout 2017, both supply and speculative development are still relatively limited. Provided there is no flood of tenant release space to the market, vacancy rates should remain relatively low compared to the long-term average, protecting rental levels.

Analysis close up

^{Completions due in the next six months are included in the supply figures}

^{* Average prime rents for preceding three months}

^{** Average rent free on leases of five years for preceding three months}