The Office Move Checklist: A Step-by-Step Guide

An office move has a cost most people forget to budget for: downtime. Every hour your team cannot work is money, so the goal is not just to move desks — it is to be up and running by Monday. A good office move checklist makes that happen. In short: start planning 8–12 weeks out, name a move coordinator, inventory everything, plan your IT and phones early, tell everyone who needs to know, and book a specialist office removals company. Here is the full timeline, step by step.

How far ahead should you start planning an office move?

The bigger the office, the earlier you start — but 8 to 12 weeks is a sensible minimum for most moves. That gives you time to agree the new floor plan, sort IT and telecoms, and book a crew before your preferred date fills up. Begin by naming one move coordinator as the single point of contact. A move with a clear owner runs far more smoothly than one where everyone assumes someone else has booked the van.

What goes on your office move checklist 8–12 weeks before?

This is the planning phase. Confirm the new lease and access dates, and get a floor plan agreed so everyone knows where they will sit. Book a survey with your removals company for a fixed quote. Give notice on your current premises, and start an inventory of furniture, equipment and anything to be recycled or replaced. Crucially, brief your IT team or provider now — network, servers, phones and internet often need weeks of lead time, and they set the pace for the whole move.

What should you do 2–4 weeks before the move?

Now it gets practical. Order crates and labels, and make each person responsible for packing their own desk. Confirm the date and timing with your crew — many businesses move over a weekend or overnight to avoid losing a working day. Arrange parking and access at both ends; in London that often means booking a parking bay suspension, which councils need several working days to arrange. Update your address on your website, Google listing, letterhead and with clients, and redirect your post.

What happens on moving day itself?

On the day, your move coordinator should be on site to direct the crew and answer questions. Label everything by destination — desk number or room — so nothing has to be sorted twice. Move and set up the IT and server equipment first so it can be tested before everyone arrives. Do a final walk-through of the old premises for anything left behind, take meter readings, and hand back the keys. A good crew handles the heavy lifting; your job is to keep the plan on track.

How do you keep IT and downtime under control?

IT is where office moves succeed or fail. Back up everything before a single cable is unplugged. Label each machine and its cables, and agree with your provider exactly when systems go down and come back up. Where you can, set up and test the new network before moving day so people can log in the moment they arrive. Moving outside office hours — a Friday evening or a weekend — means any hiccups are ironed out before Monday, protecting the productivity that makes or breaks the budget.

How do you choose the right office removals company?

Look for a company that moves businesses, not just homes — they will understand crates, IT handling, out-of-hours working and minimising downtime. Check they are fully insured and can work to your timetable, and ask for a fixed quote for the move itself, with any council parking-suspension fees passed through at cost rather than marked up. Our vans are ULEZ-compliant, so that charge does not land on your bill either. We handle London office and commercial moves end to end, with the planning, parking and timing sorted in advance — so your team loses as little working time as possible.