10 November 2026

How to Move Offices Without Disrupting Your IT

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels

Most office moves have a spreadsheet somewhere with a row that just says "IT". It sits between "book the removal van" and "order new signage", and it tends to get about the same amount of attention.

The trouble is that "IT" covers the broadband, the phones, the Wi-Fi, the printers, the card machine, the alarm, and every login your team uses to reach the systems the business runs on. If any one of those isn't ready on the first morning, people arrive at a smart new office and can't do their jobs.

Almost all of it is avoidable. The fixes are less about technology than timing: start early, test while the old office is still there to fall back on, and don't cancel anything until you're certain nothing depends on it.

This guide works through the move in the order things need to happen.

Before You Sign: Get the Building Checked

Tell your IT provider as soon as a particular building becomes a serious option, not once the lease is signed. Ideally, ask them to look round before you commit or before refurbishment plans are finalised.

A visit like this is looking for things a normal viewing won't show you:

• What connectivity the building can actually get. Whether full fibre or a leased line is available at that address, and what installing it would involve, can change both your timetable and your budget.
• The state of the cabling. A modern-looking office can still have network points in the wrong places, unlabelled cables left by the previous tenant, or a patch panel nobody can trace.
• Somewhere sensible for the network equipment. It needs power, ventilation and a lock. A cupboard that overheats when the door is shut, or a shelf under the reception desk, isn't it.
• The landlord's rules. In shared buildings, building management often controls when engineers can visit, where equipment can go, and which contractors are allowed into risers and comms rooms. Better to find that out now than when an engineer is turned away at the door.

If new cabling is needed, have it installed and tested before the furniture arrives and blocks the walls, floors and ceilings it needs to reach.

Put One Person in Charge of the IT Side

A move pulls in the landlord, the broadband provider, an electrician, a cabling contractor, the removal firm, software suppliers and your own staff. Without someone tracking it all, dates slip through the gaps between them.

Choose one person in the business to own the IT side of the move. They don't need to be technical. They need to know who's doing what and when, and who can approve a change when plans shift.

Ask your IT provider for a written timeline covering ordering, installation, cabling, equipment setup, testing, staff communication, and the date the old office's services can be cancelled. Then build in slack. If the new office is only ready on the morning everyone arrives, a late broadband installation becomes the whole business sitting idle.

Write Down What the Business Actually Does All Day

Before anyone decides how to move the equipment, list what the business needs to do on a normal day. Answer the phones. Take card payments. Open client files. Run video calls. Send invoices. Print labels. Log in to a sector-specific system or a supplier portal.

Then work backwards to the technology behind each one. A card machine might use Wi-Fi, a mobile signal, or an old phone line. A reception phone might depend on the broadband, the network and a handset configured for that number. A cloud accounting package needs the internet, working user accounts, multi-factor authentication and possibly a scanner.

This exercise reliably turns up things nobody thinks of as IT: door entry, CCTV, intercoms, intruder and fire alarms, meeting room screens, franking machines. Plenty of these quietly rely on the network or a phone line.

What you end up with is a basic inventory of your hardware, software and services. The NCSC describes asset management as the foundation for most other areas of cyber security, and during a move that same list doubles as a checklist of everything that has to arrive at the other end and work.

Order the Internet Connection First

The new connection is usually the job with the longest lead time and the least control over it. Depending on the building and the type of service, installation can involve a survey, landlord permission, cabling or groundwork, equipment delivery and an engineer visit, and any of those can slip.

Order it as soon as you know what the office needs. Ask the provider to confirm in writing the installation date, the date the service goes live, and anything the landlord or your own contractors must have done first.

Size it on how your team works today, not on what the old office happened to have. A firm that lives on Microsoft 365, Teams calls, internet phones and large file transfers needs more than one that mostly sends email. Microsoft advises businesses to assess their internet connectivity as part of planning for Microsoft 365, with a fuller network assessment where Teams calls and meetings depend on it.

If losing the internet would stop the business working, plan a backup connection at the same time. That might be a second fixed line or a mobile connection, depending on what the building can get. A data-only business SIM in a 4G or 5G router is one way to provide that mobile backup, and the same kind of SIM can keep a handful of people working if the new line goes live later than promised.

Then test the backup, because having one on paper isn't the same as having one that works. Mindvision, one of our clients, had been paying for a dual-internet failover for years that had never been set up properly, so it had never actually worked. A backup line only counts once someone has unplugged the main one and watched the office stay online.

Keep the old office's connection running until the new one has been installed, tested and used for real work. If the move date slips, the old office is your fallback.

Check Every Phone Line, and Anything That Uses One

Most business phone systems now run over the internet, so they depend on your broadband, your network and your power supply. Ask your phone provider exactly what changes at the new address: whether your numbers can move with you, whether handsets need reconfiguring, and make sure the address they hold for emergency calls is updated to the new premises.

Then look beyond the phones themselves. The UK's analogue phone network is being switched off by January 2027, and the government's guidance on moving landlines to digital specifically warns businesses that alarms, payment terminals, lifts and door entry systems may rely on it. A phone socket on the wall of the new office is no guarantee an older device will work there.

Ask each equipment supplier what their device needs at the new address, whether that's an adapter, a digital or 4G communicator, or a replacement. Sorting that out a few weeks before the move is far better than discovering on day one that the alarm can't reach its monitoring centre.

Don't Just Plug the Old Network Back In

Carrying the old router and switches across town and plugging them straight back in brings every existing niggle along with them. Use the move as the moment to check whether the firewall, switches and wireless access points suit the new space. A bigger floor, thicker walls or a second storey can each call for more access points or a different layout.

Test the Wi-Fi where people will actually use it: the far end of the open-plan area, the meeting rooms, reception. A strong signal next to the comms cabinet tells you nothing about a Teams call two walls away.

Keep business and guest Wi-Fi genuinely separate in the new setup, not just given different names. Printers, cameras and building systems may need their own controls too.

One detail that catches people out: the new connection will almost certainly come with a different public IP address. If a cloud system, supplier portal, remote access tool or site-to-site VPN only accepts connections from your current address, it will stop working on day one unless it's updated. Your IT provider should find these in advance and get each one changed before the cutover.

Back Up Before Anything Is Unplugged

Equipment that's being moved is equipment that can be dropped, lost or reconnected wrongly. Before anything is disconnected, confirm your important data is backed up and that the most recent backups actually completed.

A backup report that says "success" isn't the same as being able to get your files back. The NCSC's guidance for small organisations stresses knowing how to restore a backup and checking it contains all your important data, so ask your IT provider to restore something that matters as a test.

Don't assume the cloud covers everything either. Microsoft 365 and similar services protect some of your data, but not necessarily every laptop, local file, application or device setting. Ask exactly what's backed up and what would need rebuilding by hand if something were damaged in transit.

Decide What's Worth Taking With You

Moving an old switch, an unreliable printer or a computer that's out of support saves money this month and carries an existing problem into the new office. Go through the equipment list with your IT provider and sort everything into move, replace or retire. Our guide on how long business computers last and when to replace them covers how to make that call for laptops and desktops.

Do this early. Anything being replaced has to be ordered, set up and tested before the move, not afterwards.

For everything that is coming with you, record the serial number, where it is now and where it's going. Label cables, power supplies, monitors, phones and any adapters so the right pieces arrive together. Photos of complicated setups help at the other end, as long as no passwords or network details are visible in the shot.

Moving Day: Transport and Cutover

Computers and network equipment should be packed and moved by people who know how to handle them. Small, valuable items such as backup drives, security keys and network devices are easily lost among general office boxes, so keep them in labelled containers with a named person responsible for handing them over at the other end. Never leave them sitting in a corridor or a shared loading bay. A device doesn't need to be switched on for the data on it to be worth stealing.

If a removal firm is handling business equipment, agree beforehand who packs it, who signs for it at the new office, and how anything missing or damaged gets reported.

Set a clear cutover window: when work stops at the old office and when systems should be back at the new one. During that window, hold back any change that isn't part of the move itself. If a software update or account change goes in on the same weekend and something breaks, nobody will be sure which change caused it.

Agree the order systems come back in, in advance. Internet, firewall, sign-in and phones usually matter more than the meeting room screen or the second printer, and that should be a business decision made the week before, not one made among the boxes.

Tell staff when systems will be down and what to do in the meantime. If some of them will work from home, check beforehand that they have suitable devices, secure remote access and the files they'll need.

Test the New Office Before Anyone Arrives

Once the network is up, test it the way your staff will use it, from where they'll actually sit:

• Sign in to each business application
• Make internal and external calls, including from reception
• Join a video meeting from a meeting room
• Print and scan
• Put through a card payment or a booking
• Check remote access and any site-to-site connections
• Confirm CCTV, door entry, alarms and anything else that sends alerts over the network
• Disconnect the main internet line and check the backup takes over

One laptop next to the router passing every test proves very little. Problems tend to show up in a particular room, on a particular printer or with a particular application, so leave enough time to fix them before the doors open.

The First Week in the New Office

Even after thorough testing, someone won't be able to find the printer, someone's phone won't sign in, and someone will end up on the guest Wi-Fi. Have your IT provider or internal IT person on site when people first arrive. Sorting a problem for the first person is far easier than sorting it for the tenth.

Send staff simple instructions before the move: what they pack themselves, what they leave for the technical team, when systems will be unavailable, and how to report a problem at the new office.

After a few days, ask team leaders whether anything is slow, unreliable or missing. Some problems only appear when the office is full and everyone is on the network at once.

Then bring the records up to date. Network diagrams, asset lists, support documentation and monitoring all need the new address and setup, so alerts still reach the right people and your IT provider can still manage everything remotely. Tell suppliers about the move too, including software vendors, phone and alarm providers, your card payment provider and your insurer. Your website, email signatures and online business listings need the new address as well. That's not strictly IT, but it's easier done in one pass while one person is coordinating the change.

Clearing Out the Old Office

Before you hand back the keys, walk the old premises properly. Check cupboards, comms rooms, ceiling voids, storage areas and desk drawers for network equipment, backup drives, phones, printers and computers. Remove any labels or notes showing passwords, Wi-Fi keys or network details.

Equipment that isn't coming with you needs its data dealt with properly before it's sold, recycled or returned. Deleting files isn't enough, and a factory reset can't always guarantee everything is unreadable. The NCSC's guidance on secure sanitisation and disposal of storage media explains how to match the method to the device and to how sensitive its data is.

Only once the new office has been running smoothly, and you're sure nothing still depends on the old site, cancel the old broadband, phone lines and monitoring contracts. Get written confirmation of each cancellation so you aren't still paying for a line in a building you left months ago.