According to Savills, take-up of science related real estate across the golden triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge, was led by the capital for the first time in H1 2025. This saw take-up reach 117,500 sq ft, an increase of over 66% on last year’s H1 figure and only 29% below the 2024 total.
Key transactions in the London market included LifeArc taking 70,000 sq ft for its new HQ laboratory at 105 Judd Street and Relation Therapeutics occupying 7,500 sq ft of fully fitted lab space at 338 Euston Road.
Savills is also tracking an additional 68,000 sq ft of lab space under offer in London. The most notable being Eli Lilly looking to take 35,000 sq ft at Apex, Tribeca, 5,000 sq ft of which will be in collaboration with The Crick. Other significant active requirements in the market include the likes of Gilead and Humanoid Robotics.
Tom Mellows, head of Savills Science UK, comments: “There continues to be ongoing challenges in early-stage fundraising, significantly impacting smaller occupiers. That said, we are still seeing traction when it comes to incubator space in London, which in part is due to the flexible all-inclusive bench-by-bench rental terms. For instance, Pioneer Group’s Victoria House in Bloomsbury Square has achieved circa 40% occupancy, with more space under offer. Whilst the LBIC space at Apex in King’s Cross is almost 70% let.”
Overall, golden triangle take-up totalled 488,534 sq ft in H1 2025, a 14% drop on the first half of last year. Despite this decrease, a review of capital raising data shows that life science venture capital (VC) is on course to exceed the 2024 year end figure of £3.7bn, which should translate to an uptick in activity in H2 and beyond.
Looking at Cambridge, Savills reports that take-up reached 264,399 sq ft in H1 2025, 14% of which was for lab space. Overall, this is a circa 7% increase on H1 2024, which can largely be attributed to ARM taking more than 95,000 sq ft on their campus at Peterhouse Technology Park in Q1. Other key transactions saw Frontier take 17,592 sq ft at South Cambridge Science Centre and Maxion Therapeutics’ 8,932 sq ft deal at Unity Campus.
With an additional 80,000 sq ft of office and lab space currently under offer in Cambridge, there is also over 150,000 sq ft of active requirements in the market, 60% of which is for laboratory accommodation. What’s more, Savills anticipates further activity in the second half of the year, with two new fully fitted lab buildings set to complete in H2, including 160,000 sq ft at CamLIFE and 60,000 sq ft at Chesterford Research Park.
In Oxford take-up in H1 2025 totalled 106,635 sq ft, a drop on the same period last year, this reflected a temporary pause in activity as some early-stage requirements were delayed due to funding constraints and evolving business strategies amid broader macroeconomic uncertainty.
Despite this, several key deals completed, including Oxford Semantics taking 4,284 sq ft at Inventa on Botley Road, Satellite Applications Catapult securing 11,000 sq ft at Quad 3, Harwell, and Alethiomics occupying 4,359 sq ft of fitted lab space at Abingdon Science Park. All underscoring continued demand from high-growth, knowledge-intensive businesses.
Looking ahead, the pipeline remains encouraging with c.75,000 sq ft currently under offer and over 135,000 sq ft of active requirements in play.
Rob Beatson, head of Oxford commercial agency at Savills, adds: “Beyond the transactional market, Oxfordshire’s position on the global innovation stage continues to strengthen, particularly in quantum computing, with record-breaking academic breakthroughs, growing commercial momentum, international investment, and the landmark $1 billion acquisition of Oxford Ionics by IonQ all reinforcing the region’s long-term potential.”
Tom Mellows continues: “H1 2025 has continued to show areas of positivity for the science sector in the UK, with a raft of announcements that look to maintain momentum in to the second half of the year. The Government’s Life Science Sector Plan is set to include new measures to create business friendly regulation, introduce low-friction procurement, whilst also at the same time supporting high potential UK companies to scale, invest and remain in the UK. A review of the capital raising data shows that life science related VC funding is approaching £2 billion at the halfway point of the year. This is despite geopolitical headwinds throughout Q2. This suggests that VC funding will exceed the £3.7 billion seen in 2024. While many occupiers have prioritised science over real estate in the last year, we anticipate a shift back towards active requirements across all three markets later in the year.”