London Set For Science Boom

Life science consulting may well be increasingly in demand in coming years, as London is getting set for a life sciences boom.

Estate agents in the capital are gearing up for a boom in the amount of laboratory space needed for the growing number of scientists, due to set up there in coming years.

There are already 27,000 life scientists in the capital, many of them based at the numerous universities there and also at the European Medicines Agency.

Due to the UK’s decision to leave the European Union the European Medicines Agency will need to relocate to another European city within the EU. Bids have already been put in, and a decision is due in November. It is not yet known what will happen to many of the scientists who were employed by the Agency, but it is expected a great deal will stay.

This means that there will still be a high concentration of life scientists and expertise in the capital which should attract businesses looking to use this.

“We expect London’s life sciences cluster to expand relatively quickly, and this will drive strong demand for office, innovation and lab space as close as possible to these knowledge centres,” Andy Monighan, senior director of tenant advisory at CBRE told CityAM.

This means that estate agents are investigating the possibility of creating laboratory co-spaces where scientists can work together to tackle the big issues of the day.

These need to be low cost and there needs to be local government backing to get them build, Mr Monighan added.