The lease is signed, or about to be, and a date has appeared on the calendar that you can’t quite ignore. Office relocation planning for a small or mid-sized business sits awkwardly between two extremes: large corporates have a dedicated facilities team, sole traders move themselves in a Saturday, and SMEs have to plan a complex operational project on top of running the company. This guide breaks the 12 weeks before an SME office move into four phases, with the right tasks landing at the right time, so the move itself becomes execution rather than firefighting.
Weeks 12 to 9: foundations
The first month is about decisions, not actions. Lock the big choices now and the later weeks become about delivery.
Confirm the move date and the building handover. Your move date depends on the new building being ready, the old lease end (or break clause), and the days of the week you can afford to be partially down. Most SMEs target a Friday move for a Monday return, with a fallback weekend in case the building isn’t ready.
Appoint an internal project lead. Even for a 30-person SME, somebody needs the move on their objectives. It doesn’t have to be a full-time role, but it has to be one named person who chases everything. If you don’t have a facilities manager, the operations lead, the office manager, or the COO usually picks this up.
Get 2 to 3 office removals quotes. A proper quote follows a survey, ideally on-site and ideally including a walk-through of the new building too. Our office removals team carries out free surveys for SME moves across Leicester, Leicestershire, Rutland, north Northants, south Notts and Derbyshire, and across to Rugby. The same surveyor briefs the crew on the day, so the working plan reflects what they actually saw at your offices. Comparing quotes line-by-line is the only reliable way to see whether one is actually cheaper or just vaguer. For a sense of the budget you should expect, see our office removal costs guide.
Audit IT and comms requirements. Talk to your IT supplier or in-house IT lead. What’s moving? What’s being decommissioned? What needs to be re-provisioned at the new site (broadband, leased line, telephony, Wi-Fi, access control)? Lead times for new business broadband can run to 8 weeks, occasionally longer; this is the call you cannot leave until week 4.
Sort the lease admin. If you’re not already through the legal process on the new building, push it. Tell your existing landlord in writing of your intent to leave per the lease terms. Confirm dilapidations expectations: what does the old building need to look like when you hand it back, and will any reinstatement work be required?
Communicate internally, in broad terms. Tell the team the move is happening, when, and what it means for them. Detail comes later; certainty now reduces grapevine speculation.
Weeks 8 to 5: practical prep
The middle phase is about turning decisions into bookings and starting on the work that needs lead time.
Confirm the removals booking. Date, address, crew size, vans, packing arrangement, IT scope, insurance level, out-of-hours premium if applicable, and price. Get the lot in writing. If the firm hasn’t done a site visit at both buildings yet, push for one before you sign.
Order new furniture and fit-out items. Lead times on commercial furniture run from a few weeks for stock items to three months for bespoke. If you’re refurnishing rather than moving the existing kit, the order goes in here. Coordinate delivery to the new building for the week before move day so it can be installed and ready.
Plan the IT cutover with your supplier. Agree the sequence: when servers go down at the old building, when they come up at the new, what runs in the meantime, and which staff need temporary remote access. If you’re moving from on-premise to cloud at the same time, this becomes a separate project parallel to the move. Our IT and server relocation guide goes into the sequencing detail.
Audit furniture and disposal. Walk the office with the project lead and the removals firm. Tag what’s moving, what’s being sold or donated, and what’s going to a clearance contractor. Old furniture costs the same to transport as new; be ruthless.
Notify your suppliers and partners. Anyone who delivers to the office, anyone who invoices you to the address, anyone who has business with your physical premises. Couriers, stationery suppliers, water dispenser, coffee, cleaners, security and alarm contractor, the lot. A working list lives in a shared spreadsheet that the project lead owns.
Book parking and access. City-centre offices typically need temporary parking suspensions, loading-bay bookings, lift sole-use, or after-hours building access. Most building managers and councils need 10 working days’ notice; some need more. Get the applications in now.
Brief insurance. Tell your business insurer about the move. Confirm cover applies during transit, what’s excluded, and whether the new address change needs to take effect on move day or earlier. Update employer’s liability and any tenant’s policies as needed.
Weeks 4 to 1: execution prep
The final month is about turning plans into a delivery timeline that runs to the hour.
Run a final pre-move survey. The removals firm walks both buildings one last time, confirms crew numbers, vans, and timings, and signs off the working plan for move day. This is the moment to surface any surprises (a desk that won’t fit through the new doorway, a server cabinet that needs craning out) while there’s still time to act.
Confirm IT readiness at the new building. Broadband live or with a confirmed install date that lands before move day. Comms cabling tested. Access points up. Workstations powered. Telephony rerouted. None of this should be cutting it fine in the final week.
Communicate the detailed plan to staff. Move-day timings, where to be on the Monday morning, whether to come into the old or new building during the working week before the move, what to bring home for the weekend if anything, and where to find the new building (transport, parking, postcode). A short FAQ or briefing pack saves dozens of individual questions.
Pack non-essential desks first. Crates and labels go out two weeks before move day. Anything not needed for daily work can be packed and labelled with the new desk location. Personal items (screens, keyboards, photos, plants) tend to move best in a labelled crate per person, packed by the staff member themselves on the last working day.
Update the change-of-address admin. Companies House, HMRC, your bank, the website footer, Google Business Profile, social media, signature blocks, letterhead, business cards, marketing collateral, and your suppliers’ records. Some of this can be drafted now and switched on after move day.
Plan the old-building handover. Dilapidations work, cleaning, key return, any final inspections. Book contractors for the week after the move so the building can be handed back per the lease.
The move itself
If the previous eleven weeks have gone to plan, the move is choreography rather than crisis management.
A typical SME weekend move runs roughly like this:
- Friday afternoon: the team finishes work, packs personal crates, logs off. IT begins shutting down servers and decommissioning comms once the team is offline.
- Friday evening or Saturday morning: the office removals crew arrives. Loading begins in agreed sequence, usually furniture first, IT and sensitive equipment last so it travels separately or on dedicated vans.
- Saturday: unload at the new building. Furniture goes in by floor plan. IT crew begins recommissioning servers, comms, and network in parallel.
- Sunday: desk-level setup, IT testing, walk-through with the project lead, snag list, final tidy.
- Monday morning: team arrives at the new building, finds their desk via clear signage, plugs in, gets working.
The single biggest determinant of how Monday morning feels is the quality of the floor plan and labelling. Crates labelled with desk numbers (or names) and a printed floor plan on the wall at the new building means staff find their seat without help. Without it, Monday morning becomes a queue of people asking where they sit.
Week +1: settling in
The week after move day matters more than most plans recognise.
Run a daily snag walk. The project lead walks the building each morning of the first week, gathering issues from staff and feeding them to the removals firm, the IT supplier, the building manager, or the relevant contractor. Most snags surface in the first three days; almost all are resolved by end of week one.
Confirm the old building handover. Cleaning done, dilapidations completed, keys returned, final meter readings submitted. Your lease ends cleanly.
Update remaining change-of-address items that you couldn’t switch until the move was live. Google Business Profile, the website footer, marketing materials, business cards.
Hold a short retro. Twenty minutes with the project lead, the IT lead, and the office manager. What worked, what didn’t, what to capture in case you ever do this again.
Tell your customers. A short, factual note: we’ve moved, here’s the new address, nothing else has changed. This works better than a marketing piece. Customers want certainty, not celebration.
Get a quote for your move
A 12-week office relocation plan turns a complex project into a series of weekly tasks the project lead can deliver. The phases above cover the rough sequence; the detail at each step depends on the size and complexity of your business.
For a free, no-obligation quote on your office move, fill in our contact form or call us on 0800 043 5393 to speak to one of our team. We’ll talk you through what’s involved, give you a clear quote, and answer any questions before you commit. No pressure either way.