Business

Volume of office space leased in Belfast fell 17% last year, with one million sq ft still unoccupied

CBRE NI said property market is continued to witness “a flight to quality” in 2025

The Ewart development on Belfast's Bedford Street.
The Ewart office scheme at Bedford Square secured one of Belfast's biggest new lease deals of 2025, with Grant Thornton signing up for 23,000 sq ft from 2027.
By Ryan McAleer

The volume of office space leased in Belfast fell by 17% last year, with more than one million square foot of office space still unoccupied in the city.

New analysis from CBRE NI recorded 288,491 sq ft of office space taken up across 41 deals in Belfast during 2025.

While that was the city’s second-best year since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, it represented a sharp fall in the 347,934 sq ft occupied across 65 deals in 2024.

It compared to 554,000 sq ft in 2018 496,000 sq ft in 2019, the last full pre-pandemic years.

Activity did pick up in the second half (H2) of 2025, with the 148,931 sq ft of office space occupied in H2 up 6.7% on the first half of the year.

Landscape view of Belfast city centre's skyline, made up of buildings and the Harland and Wolff Cranes.
Some 288,491 sq ft of office space was leased in Belfast last year, which was 17% down on 2024. (DARREN KIDD)

CBRE said while the number of deals fell last year, the average office size leased increased 31% year-on-year to 7,036 sq ft.

Notable H2 2025 deals included Grant Thornton leasing 23,000 sq ft at The Ewart and StormHarvester leasing just under 10,000 sq ft at 10 Mays Meadow.

CBRE said the commercial property market continued to witness “a flight to quality” in 2025, with new developments in Belfast outperforming older existing stock.

In total, it said 1,097,090 sq ft of office space remained unoccupied in the city at the end of last year.

The property consultancy estimates demand for around 300,000 sq ft within the market.

However, the company said predicting the level of demand “has been challenging” in the post-Covid hybrid working environment.

“We expect that during 2026 more staff will return to the office given the ongoing announcements made by major corporate occupiers such as implementing a back to office policy,” said CBRE.

However, it said “slow decision making” is impacting the actual level of deals completed.

The property firm said a key factor in the availability figure in Belfast remaining “stubbornly high”, is the number of large buildings in the city “that simply aren’t capable of occupation without significant capital expenditure”.

CBRE added: “The concern for the Belfast market now is that the supply of best-in-class buildings is diminishing which will contribute to rents growing in 2026.

“The downside is it will impact the city’s ability to accommodate large scale requirements.

“Build cost inflation coupled with increased development finance costs is having a significant impact on development viability of all major city locations and rents in excess of £35 per sq ft will be necessary to support development.”

The only new office schemes currently under construction in Belfast include Kainos’ One Bankmore development and the Momentum One Zero project, which will add 70,000 sq ft to The ECIT building at Catalyst in the Titanic Quarter.

Looking ahead, CBRE said Translink has lodged plans for an office building next to Lanyon Train Station, while Melcorpo has proposed a major refurbishment of Capital House on Upper Queen Street.