Meta to close major London office
Social media giant is to close its London HQ at One Rathbone Square
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is set to close its London headquarters at One Rathbone Square, located in the city's upmarket Fitzrovia district.
The decision comes on the heels of Meta paying £149 million to terminate a long-term lease on another office near London's Regent's Park.
The Rathbone Square office, just off Oxford Street in central London, which Meta moved into in 2017, served as a hub for marketing and sales teams, engineers, developers, and even housed a dedicated incubator space for start-ups.
According to Deadline, Meta informed its staff of the impending changes in December.
"We're looking forward to consolidating our teams at Rathbone Square into our recently opened King's Cross campus and our newly expanded Brock Street office," a spokesperson told Deadline.
Meta did not disclose whether it is obligated to compensate the property owners for vacating the Rathbone Square office, and the terms of the 15-year lease remain undisclosed.
German fund manager Deka Immobilien acquired Rathbone Square for £375 million in 2017. The company said it has not received any payments from Meta to terminate its lease and expressed confidence in re-letting the property quickly if necessary.
With the move set to take place over the coming months, the details surrounding potential associated costs for Meta remain unclear.
Meta's UK presence will now be concentrated on two existing locations, one in Brock Street, near Euston, and another in Kings Cross.
The King's Cross campus, which opened in March 2022, was inaugurated by King Charles and Queen Camilla.
Also last year, the company opened a new campus in Dublin, which now serves as its official international headquarters with approximately 2,000 employees in Ireland.
Meta has been strategically reducing its UK property footprint for the last few months.
The move follows a series of cutbacks and the implementation of a hybrid working model at Meta, which experienced a dramatic headcount reduction throughout 2023.
The company's UK workforce, as of the last available filings in 2022, numbered around 7,000 employees, but recent cuts have reportedly brought the total to below 5,000.
Meta has assured its UK employees that there would be no reduction in staff numbers due to the Rathbone Square office closure.
In September, British Land revealed that Meta had surrendered one of the two buildings it had leased at London's Regent's Park.
Meta had not moved into the recently refurbished Triton Square office building, and reports from 2022 suggested that Meta was actively seeking to sub-let this space.
Meta paid £149 million to break its lease on the Triton Square office building.
This significant financial decision reflects the broader trend of large corporations reassessing their workspace needs amid the post-pandemic normal of hybrid working.
The pandemic has compelled organisations to reconsider their traditional office setups, grappling with the challenge of balancing in-person collaboration with employees' growing preference for remote work.
Many big enterprises are navigating this delicate equilibrium, with a surge in demand for flexible working arrangements.
Tech giants like Meta, Amazon, and Google have been at the forefront of this evolving narrative.
These companies, along with several major financial institutions, have ordered employees to return to the office for the majority of the working week.