Office Move: How to Plan a Successful Relocation

The AMVIA Team | 9 min read · Mar 2026

Why does an office move need IT planning months in advance?

Because the slowest item on the critical path is connectivity, and you cannot rush it. A new leased line can take 30-90 working days from order, full-fibre (FTTP) typically a few weeks, and porting phone numbers to a new VoIP system several weeks more. Miss those windows and you move into an office with no internet and no phones.

The practical rule: begin technology planning the moment a move is confirmed. For anything involving a business leased line, that means roughly 3-4 months before the target date. For a broadband-only move, 6-8 weeks is the minimum sensible runway. Everything else — security reconfiguration, hardware transport, testing — stacks on top of the connectivity lead time, not alongside it.

What are the real lead times for office-move technology?

Use this as your planning baseline. These are realistic UK order-to-live windows as of 2026, not best-case marketing numbers — survey delays, wayleaves and excess construction charges can extend them.

Aim to have the new connection installed and tested at least one week before you move. That buffer is where you fix the problems that always appear, without them landing on move day.

How do I check connectivity before signing the lease?

Before you commit to a building, confirm what it can actually deliver. Connectivity options at the address dictate both your budget and your timeline, so this belongs in the lease decision — not after it.

• Run an availability check for every relevant technology: FTTC, FTTP and business broadband options, plus leased line reach
• Get indicative pricing for each so you can compare honestly
• For a leased line, request a survey to confirm the excess construction charge (ECC) — this varies enormously between buildings and is worth knowing before you sign

If a shortlisted premises has poor or expensive connectivity, weigh that against rent. A cheap lease with a £20,000 ECC for fibre is not a cheap lease.

When should I order the new connection?

The day the premises is agreed. Connectivity is the longest lead-time item in the entire move, so it goes first — before furniture, before fit-out, before anything that feels more urgent but takes less time.

Order against the table above and request that installation completes a week ahead of move-in. Running the new circuit early gives you a tested, stable connection on day one instead of an engineer visit booked for the afternoon you are trying to open for business. For multi-site or higher-bandwidth needs, scope the leased line installation at the same time so the survey window is not wasted.

How do I move my phone numbers without losing calls?

Port early and bridge the gap. Following the PSTN/ISDN switch-off — originally targeted for December 2025 and now confirmed for 31 January 2027 — all UK business phone lines are migrating to IP, so an office move is the natural moment to review your telephony. Ofcom has set out how analogue landlines are migrating to digital voice, and that migration is now the default for every business line.

• Number porting: to keep existing numbers, raise a porting request with your new business VoIP provider at least 4 weeks before the move. Porting takes time and cannot be accelerated.
• Call routing during transition: arrange call forwarding from the old numbers to a temporary or mobile number to cover the porting window so nothing goes unanswered.
• Handsets: physical VoIP handsets at the new site need configuring for the new connection, with SIP registrations updated.

If you have not yet moved off legacy lines, treat the move and the PSTN switch-off as a single project rather than two.

What changes for cybersecurity when you move office?

More than most teams expect. A new building means new public IP addresses, new network hardware and new physical access — every one of which has a security consequence that is easy to miss in the chaos of a move.

• New public IPs mean all VPN configurations, IP allow-lists and firewall rules need updating to the new addresses
• New routers, switches and access points must be configured to your standards before they touch the network — never plug in a device on default credentials. The NCSC is explicit that default passwords on network equipment are a routine attacker entry point
• Physical security at the new site — server room, comms cabinet, who holds keys — should be reviewed and documented
• The telephony transition is a natural trigger to review your wider managed cybersecurity posture, not just the kit you are unplugging

A move is one of the few moments when your whole estate is in flux. That makes it the right time to fix the security debt you have been deferring.

How do I move on-premises IT infrastructure safely?

Carefully, and with testing built in. If you still run on-premises servers, NAS or local network gear, the physical relocation needs as much planning as the connectivity, because hardware does not enjoy being moved.

• Transport server hardware professionally — hard drives are sensitive to shock in transit, and a dropped array is a data-loss event
• Survey and test structured cabling at the new premises before move-in wherever possible
• Plan a defined reconnection-and-testing window after the hardware lands, rather than assuming it will simply switch on

Cloud-hosted systems and SaaS are unaffected by the physical move, which is exactly why many businesses use a relocation as the catalyst to retire on-premises kit. If that is you, fold a cloud migration into the project and review the supporting IT infrastructure while everything is already in motion.

Why coordinate the whole move through one provider?

Because the failures in office moves live in the gaps between suppliers. When connectivity, VoIP, IT and security sit with separate vendors, nobody owns the dependencies — the line arrives before the firewall config, the numbers port before the handsets are ready, and each supplier blames the next.

AMVIA runs the move end to end: availability checks at the new premises, installation coordination, VoIP migration and number porting, and IT and security reconfiguration at the new site. One provider, security-first, with Microsoft-certified engineers — so the interdependencies are managed by the people accountable for the outcome, not left to chance across three contracts.