Best Office Spaces for Tech Companies in London (Shoreditch, Old Street & King's Cross)

October 23, 2026 20 Minute Read

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London’s tech market is city-wide, but three postcodes lead the way: E1, EC1 and N1C. For tech founders and growing teams looking for office space in Shoreditch, Old Street and King’s Cross, this is where the sector is concentrated.

A founder on a handful of hot desks, a scaleup taking its first private office and an established firm signing for a whole floor often end up looking in the same corridor. It runs east to north and holds every kind of space a growing company needs, from coworking desks through serviced and managed offices to conventional leases. The cluster spills past its own edges, into Clerkenwell, Aldgate and Euston, and plenty of tech firms take space elsewhere in London altogether. Nowhere else in London packs this much of the sector into so little ground.

We cover each area in turn: character, transport, and real buildings you can view today. Browse the lot through CBRE's flexible office and coworking spaces, or start broad with all coworking and flexible office space in London.

Why London's tech companies cluster in Shoreditch, Old Street and King's Cross

Each corner earned its character differently. Shoreditch got there first: agencies, product studios and media-tech set the tone years before anyone called it a hub. Old Street, with Silicon Roundabout at its centre, is the startup heartland and still the densest patch of early-stage companies in the city. King's Cross is where the big names landed. Google's UK headquarters, Meta close by, and a knowledge quarter of universities and research institutes feeding talent into all of it.

Why cluster at all? Because being ten minutes from your investors, your next hires and three other teams solving the same problem still counts for something. Remote working didn't flatten that the way people predicted, and the AI companies arriving now are making the same choice. For more on how that demand is reshaping the market, see London's Future: AI-Driven Office Demand.

The numbers back it up. our UK Flex Market Report H1 2026 records a 20% increase in flex transactions, driven by AI businesses, and London operator take-up at its highest level since before the pandemic. Technology, media and telecoms was the sector that acquired the most flex space over the half.

Case study

We advised a rapidly growing AI company on its first UK office in London. Flexibility was non-negotiable to support anticipated headcount growth. After reviewing several submarkets together, King's Cross emerged as the clear fit, its tech and AI ecosystem the deciding factor. The client selected MYO King's Cross, drawn by its premium fit-out, transport links and the ability to scale within the building without renegotiating.

What a tech company should check in a space

A technology occupier has requirements a general office guide tends to overlook. Reliable high-speed fibre comes first; even an hour of downtime carries a real cost for an engineering team. The ability to scale the space up or down at short notice matters more than in most sectors, given how quickly tech headcount changes. And in a shared building, find out who occupies the neighbouring floors and how your data stays secure. Better to raise these on a viewing than discover them after you've signed.

Facade of a London office tower at dusk, with lit floors visible behind its diagonal steel frame.

Office space in Shoreditch

The biggest of the three, and the oldest. Warehouse conversions and exposed brick, with floors full of natural light. A five-person product team and a two-hundred-person scaleup sit within a couple of streets of each other. It's where brand-conscious tech firms want to be seen.

Transport links in Shoreditch

Shoreditch High Street and Old Street stations cover the Overground and the Northern line, and the Elizabeth line at Liverpool Street is a short walk. Easy to reach from most of London, which matters when you're hiring across it.

Types of office space in Shoreditch

The supply splits three ways: flexible coworking (shared desks on short terms), serviced private offices (your own space, with utilities and Wi-Fi included), and converted warehouse floors on traditional leases (a longer fixed term, with more control over the fit-out), in sizes running from a couple of desks to a whole building. Most operators here run 24-hour access, which matters when your engineers are shipping to a deadline.

The next wave is already arriving. AI-led companies accounted for 34% of Central London tech take-up in 2025, according to CBRE research, and with headcounts growing as fast as theirs, flexibility sits high on their list. Shoreditch's mix of coworking, serviced and converted space is built for exactly that.

Featured CBRE listings

 

See all flexible office space in Shoreditch

A team of four meets around a table as a colleague presents from a whiteboard in a bright, plant-filled office.

Office space in Old Street and Silicon Roundabout

Silicon Roundabout. The name does the work. This is the startup heartland, and the supply reflects it: coworking and serviced office space built for teams that double in a year and occasionally halve. The coworking floors trade on community too: networking events and workshops, with other entrepreneurs a desk away. If you want to be in the thick of the cluster, this is the address.

Transport links in Old Street

Old Street station sits on the Northern line between the City and Shoreditch. Central and well connected, with investor meetings one way and hires from everywhere else.

Featured CBRE listings

 

Browse all office space around Old Street and in East London

Gasholders residential buildings at King’s Cross beside Regent’s Canal, with trees and a canal lock in the foreground.

Office space in Euston & King's Cross

The grown-up corner. Google's UK HQ, Meta nearby, new buildings across the Pancras Square estate, and a knowledge quarter that keeps the talent arriving. This is where established and fast-scaling firms go for a flagship address.

Transport links in King’s Cross

King's Cross St Pancras is about as connected as London gets: six Underground lines, national rail across the UK, and Eurostar next door at St Pancras. For firms hiring nationally or meeting clients from Europe, that reach is a pull on its own.

Featured CBRE listings

 

See all flexible office space in King's Cross

Shoreditch vs Old Street vs Euston & King's Cross: Which suits your tech business?

Tech office areas in London compared: Shoreditch, Old Street, and Euston and King’s Cross
Area Character Best for Connectivity
Shoreditch The creative-tech original Brand-led teams wanting a design-forward HQ Shoreditch High St, Old St; Elizabeth line nearby
Old Street Startup heartland Startups and fast-growing scaleups Old St (Northern line), City and Shoreditch on the doorstep
Euston & King’s Cross Big-tech and knowledge quarter Established and scaling firms wanting a flagship St Pancras: six Tube lines, UK rail, Eurostar

Plenty of tech firms would be happy in any of the three. What usually decides it is the commute, budget and how much the address needs to say about the brand, and since they're ten minutes apart by Tube, teams often shortlist across all three at once.

Two colleagues review documents in a glass-walled meeting room on a high floor of a London office tower.

The right space for your stage: Startup, scaleup or established tech firm

Early-stage teams usually start with coworking or hot desks: low commitment, short terms, and other founders nearby. A good flexible building takes care of the practical side too, with meeting rooms, private call booths and fast Wi-Fi built into the floor. Our pick of the best coworking spaces in London covers the strongest options.

Once the core team settles, a private or serviced office gives you your own front door without a long lease. That first move from shared to private is where decisions tend to go wrong: taking too much space too soon, or too little with no room to grow. Our guide to choosing office space for startups in London walks through how to get that sizing right.

Established firms more often take managed space or a conventional lease, trading some flexibility for control over the fit-out and the floor. Still weighing the formats? The future is flex covers the trade-offs, and if you'd like your headcount turned into a sized requirement, CBRE Spacer does it in minutes.

Case study

We worked with one AI occupier from a single London employee to a team requiring relocation within nine months. Starting with 20 desks in January 2026, we secured an adjacent right of first refusal in April as headcount grew to 60, then coordinated a move within the same operator's portfolio to a larger Liverpool Street workspace by August. Flexible space, managed well, kept pace with a business that didn't know in January where it would be in August.

Open-plan coworking space with long shared desks, people working on laptops and a lounge area in the background.

How much does tech office space cost in these areas?

Operators in all three areas quote one predictable, all-in monthly rate that covers:

  • Rent
  • Business rates
  • Utilities
  • Cleaning
  • Reception
  • High-speed Wi-Fi
  • Shared amenities

What moves that figure is location, building quality and the depth of the amenity offer, in roughly that order. King's Cross is the premium end by a clear margin. Shoreditch and Old Street sit together at the most affordable of the three, with Clerkenwell and Farringdon between them, and the spread inside each area is wide.

Office rents in London tech areas, prime and average, in pounds per square foot: Euston and King’s Cross, Clerkenwell and Farringdon, Shoreditch and Old Street
Area Prime (£ psf) Average (£ psf)
Euston & King’s Cross 300 225
Clerkenwell / Farringdon 250 215
Shoreditch / Old Street 180 160

Central London flex office rates, H1 2026 (£ psf), spaces over 10 desks. Source: CBRE, UK Flex Market Report H1 2026.

For a proper grounding in what goes into the monthly rate, our startups guide covers costs and pricing in detail, and the costs and pricing checklist (PDF) gives you the questions to ask any operator before you sign.

A person looks out over the City of London skyline, including 20 Fenchurch Street and Tower 42.

Finding the right tech office with CBRE

We work directly with every major operator across all three markets and the biggest tech companies giving you access to off-market space, honest guidance on what fits your headcount and budget over three years, and the speed to move on creative structures like subleases before they ever reach the open market.

Tell us your headcount and timeline and we'll draw up the shortlist off-market options included. Use our occupier enquiry form or speak directly with our Flexible Solutions team.

Talk to our Flexible Solutions team. We'll find the right fit.

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