The IT Side of Moving Office: What to Sort Out Before Moving Day
Key Takeaways:
- IT planning should start well before moving day, especially for connectivity, cabling and phone systems.
- Verify the new office’s internet availability, network infrastructure, power and comms setup before assuming the space is ready.
- Map out what equipment is moving, what needs replacing and what has to be installed in advance.
- Test connectivity, Wi-Fi, phones and shared systems before staff arrive where possible.
- Have a fallback plan in place in case part of the new setup is delayed.
Two dates tend to anchor an office move. One is the day the lease ends and the other is the day the removal firm turns up. Neither says anything about when people can work in the new place, and that depends on things a van can’t carry, like the internet connection and the cabling behind the walls. Each has a timetable of its own, and the slowest one decides when the office is ready, whatever the diary says.
Laptops are the easy part
Equipment is easy to picture, which is why it dominates the removals plan. Screens get wrapped, and laptops go into boxes. The harder part is everything those devices rely on at the other end, from connectivity and Wi-Fi coverage to power points and phone services. That environment is what a moving office IT setup is about, so it starts with a plain comparison of what the business uses now and what the new premises already provide. The difference between the two is that ordering and installation still need to be completed, and that list must be created before the move date is fixed, because some of it can’t be done in a rush.
Some suppliers need weeks of notice
Finding out two days before the move that something needs ordering doesn’t mean it arrives two days later. Internet connectivity is the clearest case. Openreach, which looks after much of the UK’s broadband network, says timings depend on what’s already at the new address and whether an engineer needs to do extra work first. Once a provider confirms a date, though, it’s the one the rest of the plan works back from.
Phones run on the same logic. A business number is printed on invoices and listed on the website, so it has to survive the move. Ofcom describes keeping your number when you change providers as a regulated facility, but the transfer still must be requested and timed around the move. Cloud telephony, including Microsoft Teams voice calling, can keep existing numbers and follow people to any device, which takes one dependency off the new premises.
There’s also a hard deadline in the background. Openreach is retiring the old analogue phone network, the PSTN, on 31 January 2027 and has warned that services still connected to it may stop working unless they’ve been upgraded or replaced. A new address that still relies on analogue lines is a problem you’d be taking on along with the lease.
The lease is the cheapest time to ask about the cabling
Before you sign, a weakness in the building is something to raise with the landlord. After you sign, it tends to become your cost. The questions worth asking are concrete. What internet services reach the building, and where do they come in? Is there a comms cupboard in the right place for your layout? Does existing cabling match where you want desks, phones, printers and meeting-room equipment? Can Wi-Fi cover the floor plan without blind spots? Are there enough power and data points for the number of users? Do door access, CCTV, alarms or printers rely on the network? What will the landlord allow for cabling, drilling and engineer access?
A standard moving checklist can’t answer these points because the answers belong to one building. IT support for office moves earns its keep at the property stage. It’s the walk-through 4TC does for small and medium-sized businesses planning a move in London or Hertfordshire.
An office relocation IT checklist, in the order the work needs doing
A good office relocation IT checklist works as a sequence. Anything with a lead time goes first, and anything that depends on something else waits for it.
Several weeks or months before the move
- Audit the current IT environment and confirm the new floor plan and number of users
- Check connectivity options and inspect the existing network and power infrastructure
- Identify anything that needs ordering or installing
- Decide which equipment moves and which is replaced or retired
- Map printers, phones, meeting-room equipment and other shared devices
- Confirm how cloud and on-premises systems will be affected
- Coordinate suppliers and building access
Before moving day
- Confirm connectivity is live and tested where possible
- Configure networking and Wi-Fi
- Label equipment and record where it’s going
- Confirm telephone routing and numbers
- Give staff clear instructions on what they need to do
- Agree on a fallback plan for anything that can’t be finished before occupation
This is the planning 4TC coordinates through its Installation and Relocation service, drawing on many years of moving companies’ IT infrastructure to bring the separate pieces of a move together before they become problems on the day.
Someone has to decide the office is ready
Most plans cover the move and say little about the stretch between switching off at the old office and starting work at the new one. A good plan states when the old office stops operating, when the new one becomes usable, what happens to calls during the change, whether people can work remotely if anything slips, and who tests connectivity, Wi-Fi, printing, phones and shared systems.
Testing deserves that much weight because an installation can be signed off while something people rely on still doesn’t work. A supplier marking a job complete means their part is done, and it says nothing about what the next person needs.
If you can’t say today who will declare the new office ready or what they’ll check before they do, the plan isn’t finished. The aim is for the business to carry on working from the new location with as little interruption as reasonably possible, and moving the equipment is only the first step toward that.
If an office move is on your calendar, get the technology side mapped out well before moving day. Speak to 4TC about Installation and Relocation support so your connectivity and equipment are ready for the new office.
