How it works
A structured way to think about your workplace.
Stay-V-Go is designed to be useful before you speak to anyone — a designer, an agent, a contractor or a landlord. It helps you arrive at those conversations knowing what you are actually trying to solve.
Tell us about your workplace
Answer questions about your people, space, growth, lease and working patterns. Approximate answers are fine — you can say you don't know.
Understand your options
The platform weighs your answers against workplace decision rules and identifies the directions worth investigating, along with the ones that are unlikely to help.
Start your Workplace Strategy journey
After seeing your free brief, create an account to save it and begin your Workplace Strategy journey. The full strategy is developed personally, not generated when you sign up.
Stay vs go, compared
Staying, changing and going — side by side
Indicative comparison of the three routes UK office occupiers weigh up at a lease event. Figures are typical ranges, not a quotation.
| Factor | Stay | Change | Go |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | Lowest — furniture, settings and better use of what you already have. | Reconfiguration or refurbishment of the existing floor, phased around occupation. | Highest — a design and build fit out of a new space, plus moving, legal and agency costs. |
| Typical programme | Weeks. | Roughly three to six months from brief to completion for most floors. | Commonly twelve months or more once search, legals and fit out are added together. |
| Disruption | Minimal. | Manageable — often phased or done in decant space. | Significant, and usually includes a period of paying for two properties. |
| Lease position | Works best with a long lease left, or where you own the building. | Often paired with a lease re-gear, which is where landlord contributions can appear. | Driven by a break clause or expiry — miss the notice date and the option closes. |
| Dilapidations | Liability continues and can usually be planned for. | Improvement works can sometimes be set against what you would have owed anyway. | A terminal schedule of dilapidations is settled on exit, and it is frequently underestimated. |
| Sustainability | Reuses what exists — the lowest embodied carbon route. | Retains the shell and structure while upgrading performance. | Can secure a far better-rated building, at the cost of new materials and works. |
Common questions
Stay vs go, in plain English
What does stay vs go mean?
Stay vs go is the decision an occupier faces at a lease event: keep the current office, change it, or move. Staying can mean renewing or re-gearing the lease. Changing means reconfiguring or refurbishing the space you already hold. Going means relocating, usually with a fit out of the new space.
When is refurbishment better than relocating?
Refurbishment usually wins when the location and the building still work, the lease has time left, and the problems are layout, condition or facilities rather than size or address. Relocating tends to win when the location no longer suits the business, the building cannot support how you work, or you need substantially more or less space than the floor can take.
How does a break clause affect the decision?
A break clause is a date you can end the lease early, and it normally needs six to twelve months' written notice with conditions attached. It is the point at which you have most leverage with a landlord, and once the notice date passes, relocation is off the table until the next event. Confirming the break date and its conditions is the first thing worth doing.
What is a design and build fit out?
Design and build means one contractor takes responsibility for both designing and delivering the fit out, under a single contract. It usually gives a faster programme and earlier cost certainty than appointing designers and contractors separately, and it is the common route for UK office fit outs.
How much office space does a UK business need per person?
A common planning benchmark is around 100 sq ft per desk, rising to roughly 115 sq ft where hybrid working means more meeting and collaboration space. What matters more than the average is peak-day attendance, because that is the demand your space actually has to absorb.
What this is — and isn't
- It is an initial workplace assessment based on the information you provide, written in terms of what may be worth investigating.
- It is not architectural, property, legal, financial or professional consultancy advice, and it will never tell you definitively what to do.
- Where your answers are uncertain, it will say so and recommend the evidence worth gathering.