Ellen Waals, Head of Agency at Savills in the Netherlands, explains: “This apparent growth is mainly the result of the rental transactions of Adyen (16,000 sq m) and Uber (30,000 sq m), together responsible for 26% of the take-up in 2020H1. Excluding these two deals, take-up declined in 2020Q2 with volumes falling by 17.8% compared to 2019Q2.”

Savills observes a shift in the type of companies taking office space in Amsterdam. Businesses in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector, professional services sector and specialist sectors were responsible for the largest share in take-up in 2020YTD, at 71.6% compared to 42.4% in 2019. ICT had by far the largest share at 42.9%, and not only because of Adyen and Uber. Other examples of companies renting office space in 2020 include Sentia, Hiber and Surfly.

Jordy Kleemans, Head of Research & Consultancy at Savills in the Netherlands, says: “ICT is one of the most important drivers of Amsterdam’s economy. In the last three years approximately 13,000 jobs were added in the capital’s ICT sector, which constitutes a growth of approximately 12% per year with a major share for tech businesses. The fastest growing businesses in terms of employment are Picnic, Adyen, Takeaway, Swapfiets and MessageBird. The largest tech employers in Amsterdam are Booking.com, TomTom, Picnic and Adyen.

In addition to these major employers, Amsterdam also boasts plenty of start-ups and scale-ups. Despite COVID-19, the long-term outlook for the Amsterdam ICT sector is positive thanks to a growing workforce, the ability to attract talent and plenty of capital. This is likely to lead to future demand for office space.”

Ellen Waals concludes: “While a drop in demand is not yet visible in the figures, it is expected that demand for office space in Amsterdam will decrease in the short term. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because as a result, in some locations the overstrained supply-demand ratios will become more balanced.”

Read the full report here.