‘We’re too self effacing’: BCO chief Richard Kauntze on why UK offices are some of the best in the world

“There were knee jerk reactions from various people running major businesses saying, ‘well obviously we’ll never need an office anymore”. Richard Kauntze is recalling the early weeks of the covid pandemic, as employers across the world were unexpectedly hit with the realisation that working from home was not leading to immediate financial ruin. 

For the chief executive of the British Council of Offices, it might have seemed like a perilous moment. But Kauntze was, and still is, sanguine about what has been arguably the most profound - and sudden - change to working habits in living memory: “I thought that was absolute nonsense at the time, and I think it has absolutely proved to be so.”

Earlier this month, Kauntze announced his decision to step down from the BCO next summer after 25 years as chief executive. His calm and steady optimism has been one of the few constants in the UK office sector during this time, not least amid the turmoil of the past four years. His belief in office working appears to have been largely sound. 

New office starts in London last year reaching the highest volume since 2005 according to Deloitte, despite the capital being now notably quieter on Mondays and Fridays because of hybrid working. Although Kauntze admits the sector’s post-covid readjustment is “still finding its way”, he does not seem daunted by the impact of the new norms. 

“Agile working is not going away, but to me that’s no bad thing at all, and it’s in no way a threat to the office. It’s an opportunity for further reinvention, because all markets, all sectors, are continually evolving and should never be afraid of change.”

The past few years of change have also seen the BCO further cement its position at the centre of the office sector. The membership body’s educational tools and design guides have proved essential during a period which has also seen a flurry of new regulations on construction, including on ventilation and energy performance.

So why is Kauntze stepping down from an organisation which he says has been an “enormous privilege” to lead? “I’m not sure what I’m going to do next to be honest,” he says. He is not, he insists, going to work for a big office developer, although he says he is “always open to any kind of conversation”. Instead his primary motive is just to do something different with his life after a quarter of a century in the same job. 

Kauntze, who turns 60 this year, says he has almost by accident spent his entire career working in property membership organisations, firstly at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and then at the British Property Federation. When he moved to the BCO, he expected to stay in the job for about five to eight years. “25 years is a very long time, and it just feels right to see what’s around the corner.”

When he started in 1999, the BCO was based in Reading and had 585 members. It is now based in Coleman Street in the City of London and has 4,000 members spanning the entire spectrum of the office sector, from developers, architects and contractors to agents and, crucially, occupiers. It is this diversity and a lack of any kind of hierarchy between different disciplines which has given the BCO its “magic formula” and allowed it to thrive, Kauntze says. 

It’s very unusual that I go abroad and I see something that I think is better than a product we would produce in the UK

Richard Kauntze

“All of our members leave all of their competitive baggage outside the door when they’re in the BCO, and they combine to try and collectively produce a better product for the ultimate customer, the occupier. That makes it a very, very stimulating organisation to work for.”

This close relationship between occupiers and suppliers has helped create a sector which has quietly become the best in the world, Kauntze believes. “As a nation, generally, we’re sometimes too self-effacing in saying how good we are. And I think the quality of what the industry does, what it delivers in terms of the product, is absolutely astonishing.”

He sees this not just in the glitzy new towers in the City or the high end refurbs in Mayfair, but across the country. “It’s very unusual that I go abroad and I see something that I think is better than a product we would produce in the UK,” he says. “It might be a lot bigger, it might be a lot taller, it might be shinier, whatever, but is it actually better?”

He compares London to New York, similar cities in terms of office culture but with diverging fortunes in their office markets. Around 14% of office space in New York is currently unoccupied, compared to 9% before the pandemic, according to real estate analytics firm CoStar. In London, 9.2% is unoccupied compared to 5% just before the first covid lockdown. This vacancy gap is forecast to widen further, with almost 20% of office space in New York expected to be empty by 2026 compared to just over 12% in London.

Kauntze puts this partly down to the quality of the stock in New York, which is relatively old and in buildings with huge floorplates and little natural light. “You’ve got to have a place where people want to be,” he says. 

London developers like Stanhope and Brookfield Properties now put outdoor space and wellbeing at the heart of their offering to occupiers which know they need to earn the commutes of their staff. It is why the City’s tallest proposed office tower, Stanhope and Aroland’s 74-storey 1 Undershaft, which had been approved for planning in 2019, has been drastically redesigned to appeal to the new tastes. It now has a large cantilevered garden terrace attached to the side of the building’s 12th floor, although this has not been without controversy. 

Lead architect Eric Parry’s new designs were deferred at a planning committee earlier this month due to objections over the unusual design of the terrace, which one councillor likened to a “plastic spoon”. Bruce Carnegie-Brown, chairman of Lloyd’s, which is based in the neighbouring grade I-listed Lloyd’s building, also wrote to the City objecting to the loss of ground-level public space at St Helen’s Square beneath the terrace. 

There’s no need to replicate in the office what you can offer in the street or what the street has to offer

Kauntze is reluctant to comment directly on a scheme which is being developed by several BCO members, including Parry, but has some words of advice for office designers.

“There’s no need to replicate in the office what you can offer in the street or what the street has to offer, because people would rather go out anyway, and that’s a very good thing,” he says when asked about 1 Undershaft. “People have got fabulous cafes just through the front door. You don’t have to offer them in the office.”

Eric Parry has been sent back to the drawing board to make some “minor” design changes which could see the removal of the contentious garden platform. It could be seen as a sign that the push for outdoor space in big schemes may have, in this case, overstepped the mark, and part of what Kauntze says is the continuing evolution of the office market’s post-pandemic adjustment. 

“I think it is absolutely an opportunity for further reinvention, because all markets, all sectors, are continually evolving, and should never be afraid of change. I mean, change is part of life, and you just have to deal with it and adapt.”