Why office space matters for life sciences companies

Life sciences companies have an exceptionally strong presence in the UK, and with good reason. Britain is a global leader in life sciences; with outstanding academic ambition, advanced infrastructure and strong governmental support. Today the sector employs more than 300,000 people working across laboratories and office space, and life sciences contributes around £100 billion to the economy. There are countless success stories of British companies using the strength of their science and innovation to get themselves firmly established. However, one of the most common and consistent challenges for life sciences companies still revolves around scaling.

The causes for this are many and varied, but a lot of them can be traced back to something that the vast majority of life science businesses have in common: namely, the realities of start-up life. As you may have found yourself, compromises around space are frequently unavoidable in the early days, and shared workspaces can provide valuable flexibility and financial freedom for businesses at the pre-seed or seed stage. That means it often feels more manageable to split lab activity and office functions across two or more locations – and while that may work well enough initially, it rarely scales cleanly or easily.

As a company progresses into post-seed or Series A stages, the complexity of its business operations generally starts to rise exponentially. New roles can include operations managers, regulatory affairs specialists, quality leads, finance teams, and business development staff, just to name a few. Naturally, they’re all jobs that rely on regular interaction with scientific and technical teams, which means that office space becomes an ever more crucial consideration in day-to-day operations and communications.

Accordingly, it’s never too early (or too late) to start thinking about office space to rent. In the long term, it provides a variety of significant benefits – ranging from better communication and collaboration, all the way up to stronger commercial performance and future growth. It can also help strengthen company culture and team wellbeing. Below, we take a more in-depth look at why office space is so vital to your life sciences business, as well as what to look for when choosing the right workspace.

A brief overview of why lab space alone isn’t enough

There’s no question that well-designed laboratories are crucial to any life sciences company, which is one of the reasons why looking for lab space to rent tends to be so consistently high up the priority list. However, it’s also true that they only form part of the overall workspace.

The lab is a highly specialised environment, one that’s optimised for the safety, sterility, precision and operational demands necessary for scientific discovery. Those same characteristics make a very poor environment for any work centred on elements like regulatory documentation, administration work, or strategic business development, all of which are essential for helping the business to grow beyond a certain stage.

In lab-only setups, this work often has to be forced into unsuitable spaces, such as shared benches and ad-hoc breakout areas. That obviously has a huge impact on productivity, typically obstructing both commercial activity and the lab work itself. Without dedicated office space, you may find that there’s a hard limit on what you’re able to achieve.

One obvious alternative of course is to have business staff working remotely, or based in another location, but that introduces its own issues. When a company’s R&D is based in one location and its commercial arm is elsewhere, that tends to have an immediate knock-on effect on communication and efficiency. Quick 10-minute corridor conversations instead have to take the form of scheduled calls, follow-up emails, and the occasional missed text or WhatsApp.

They’re mostly minor delays, but they can quickly start to accumulate. Eventually, processes and workflows may noticeably slow down, and accountability can easily become a lot harder to maintain – potentially affecting elements like regulatory compliance, audit readiness and speed to market.

 So, what role does office space play in life sciences innovation?

In many ways, it’s easy to see why laboratories tend to be the top priorities for most life sciences companies, since they’re the only environments that can facilitate vital scientific work like experimentation, validation, and testing. Equally, offices play a crucial (and sometimes underappreciated) role in supporting this scientific work with a wide range of commercial activity.

This can include (but is not limited to):

• Business development calls and activities
• Quality assurance and quality control
• Analysis of clinical and preclinical data
• Regulatory certification
• Management of intellectual property
• Pitches and investor meetings
• Development and rollout of funding strategies
• Long-term financial and business planning

They’re all excellent examples of reasons why it’s always a good idea to invest in a well-designed and conveniently-located office space. We’ve already covered the risks of what can happen if a company never fully prioritises its office space. So now the question is: what kind of benefits can you enjoy if you prioritise yours?

1. Better communication and operational efficiency

Office space plays a direct role in how efficiently life sciences businesses operate day to day. When office and lab teams are based in the same location, that can shorten approval cycles, reduce rework, and help to ensure that compliance queries are resolved more quickly. This is particularly important in regulated environments, where delays in documentation sign-off, QA review, or protocol approval can potentially stall entire programmes.

2. Clearer governance, risk control, and accountability

As a life sciences company scales, governance becomes increasingly central to its ability to progress programmes effectively. Combined office and lab space enables scientific staff to work closely with regulatory, quality, and operational teams, making it easier to identify and resolve risks early. It also reinforces accountability by keeping decision-makers accessible to the team, and ensures that compliance is embedded into everyday operations (rather than treated as a separate process).

3. Faster collaboration and more effective problem solving

Problems or challenges in life sciences don’t always fit neatly into a single area of expertise – instead, they often straddle several areas, potentially requiring input from scientific, regulatory, operational and commercial teams. Shared environments are much better at facilitating the kind of collaborative approaches that these problems generally require, helping teams to pool their respective expertise and resources. That helps the company as a whole maintain momentum, minimising any associated downtime and enabling the team to focus on their next milestone.

4. Improved culture and productivity

Here’s one that’s frequently underestimated: office space can actually play an important role in shaping and reinforcing company culture, helping staff feel more connected to each other. As well as making work more enjoyable for the team, this also has clear benefits for the company as a whole. Dedicated office environments encourage informal knowledge sharing, team cohesion, and stronger working relationships, all of which support effective collaboration. As the company grows, the quality of the office environment also becomes a key part of attracting and retaining experienced talent. According to one recent study by JLL, more than half of life sciences decision-makers saw attracting and retaining talent as a top corporate goal of theirs for the next few years.

5. Office space drives growth, innovation, and futureproofing

Beyond managing the day-to-day operations, it’s also primarily the responsibility of the company’s commercial team to handle long-term planning, and they need a dedicated space in order to do so. Operations managers, regulatory specialists, quality leads, and senior leadership all need regular close interaction with scientific staff in order to make informed big-picture decisions that benefit the wider business. By the same token, it also helps them adapt to change, compete more effectively, and build organisational resilience against industry events – all vital for future growth.

How to choose the right office space as your business grows

Growth and scalability are two key priorities that it always helps to keep in mind when choosing office space for your own life sciences business, especially if you’ve enjoyed significant growth already. The more successful your company becomes, the bigger the stakes when it comes to office decisions. Something that works as a practical solution early on may end up becoming restrictive as your team grows, and your operational expectations increase.

In order to minimise the risk of issues further down the line, there are a couple of useful questions it’s always helpful to ask. Some of these include:

• How closely does this space sit alongside your lab environment, and does it support regular interaction between scientific and non-scientific teams?
• Can the layout be adapted as roles change and new functions are introduced?
• Are there suitable spaces for focused work, collaboration, and confidential discussions like regulatory reviews, personnel discussions or investor meetings?
• Does the building infrastructure support the technology, security, and compliance standards you’ll need as you scale?
• What operational support is provided, and how much of your team’s time will it require to manage the space?

And of course, don’t forget to ask your team! Specialists and department heads will know best when it comes to the facilities and resources they need to do their jobs most effectively, so if you can find something that strikes an excellent balance between everyone’s different needs, you can generally be confident that it’s a strong solution.

5 key characteristics of good office space for life sciences companies

The life sciences sector covers a wide range of disciplines, business models, and growth paths, which means there’s often a significant amount of variation between companies in terms of what they need from their office space. Having said that, there are several consistent characteristics that the best office spaces tend to have in common. Here’s a quick roundup.

1. Close proximity to laboratories

We’ve already covered this section in plenty of detail, so to recap: proximity to laboratories is one of the most important considerations when it comes to office space to rent for life sciences companies. This proximity maximises effective communication and collaboration, minimises avoidable delays, and helps to positively influence decision-making by ensuring that the technical, scientific and commercial teams are all closely aligned.

2. Flexible layouts and scalability

Flexibility is crucial to life sciences office spaces – partially to deal with the unpredictability that’s inherent to the sector. Life science is first and foremost a journey of discovery. That means that research priorities can change, new programmes can emerge, and new discoveries can often shift the overall direction of the company. Flexible layouts can be reconfigured to match any key organisational or operational changes, and also helps to build in scalability from the outset – paving the way for future growth.

3. Meeting rooms and collaboration zones

Meeting rooms are always going to be a major focus of any office workspace, especially as they serve as the main connection spaces between different disciplines. The nature of life science means that it frequently requires critical thinking and creative solutions, so it always helps to have dedicated meeting spaces that are specifically set up to facilitate this. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve boardroom tables – lots of teams prefer comfy, open-plan spaces where they can gather to brainstorm and problem-solve.

In addition, open communal spaces that enable life sciences companies to meet and engage with other companies in the same building can lead to important new strategic collaborations, sharing important knowledge and expertise.

4. Quiet space for focused work

Alongside collaboration spaces, life sciences companies also need areas for staff to work in uninterrupted focus – for example when they’re reviewing documentation, analysing data, or developing strategy. As well as supporting different working styles across the organisation, this also helps to make the workplace more inclusive for neurodiverse staff. One survey of life science employees found that almost half of its respondents identify as neurodivergent (48.1%), which is nearly double the global average (20%).

Consistently noisy spaces can be notoriously overwhelming for neurodivergent staff, so dedicated quiet spaces can help reduce stress and distraction, and promote better problem-solving and creativity. In other words, it makes working life even more pleasant and satisfying for the team, and helps support innovation for the company as a whole.

5. Infrastructure that supports regulated environments

Office space for life sciences companies also need to account for the practical realities of operating within a regulated sector. That means they need to have reliable IT infrastructure, secure access, suitable data handling arrangements, and spaces for confidential discussions. As regulatory requirements evolve and governance becomes more complex over time, this kind of infrastructure plays a key role in helping life sciences organisations to maintain compliance and operational consistency.

It’s worth noting that this is far from an exhaustive list of the requirements for life sciences office spaces, but it does provide an insight into some of the most fundamental aspects to look at first.

Office space at Sci-Tech Daresbury

If you’re reaching the stage where office space needs to work just as hard as your lab environment, this is where we come in at Sci-Tech Daresbury.

Office space on campus sits alongside specialist laboratory facilities, making it easier for scientific, operational and commercial teams to work closely day-to-day, while still having spaces designed specifically for their roles. You’ll find a range of office environments across the campus, from smaller suites through to larger spaces that can accommodate expanding teams. Buildings like The Innovation Centre,Vanguard House and Techspace One are specifically designed with flexibility in mind, allowing layouts to change as your headcount increases, new roles are introduced, or your priorities shift. This makes it easier to scale without the disruption that often comes with repeated moves.

Why location matters: science parks and innovation zones

Beyond the space itself, being based within an established science park also brings you a variety of further practical advantages. We’ve summarised some of the most pivotal ones below.

Closer alignment between office and lab activity

Close proximity to laboratories helps you and your team to maintain regular, informal interaction between scientific, regulatory, operational and commercial teams. This makes it easier to resolve questions, align key priorities across various functions within the business, and keep decision-making closely connected to live research activity.

Access to shared facilities and professional infrastructure

Science parks provide shared meeting and collaboration spaces, secure IT and building infrastructure, and on-site amenities that are specifically designed to meet the needs of science-led organisations like yours. The site’s professional management can also help to reduce the internal time and resources required to run specialist workspaces.

A community of like-minded organisations

Working on a science and innovation campus also provides valuable opportunities for you to work within a wider community of science and technology businesses, many of which may be operating at different stages of growth. It’s the perfect environment to encourage knowledge-sharing, peer learning, and collaboration – and all while still allowing you to retain focus within your own organisation.

Credibility and security

A professionally managed campus setting can be particularly useful for strengthening credibility with investors, partners and prospective hires. Enhanced site security and controlled access are especially valuable if your organisation handles any sensitive data, intellectual property, or regulated documentation.

Connectivity and access to talent

When it comes to our own science and innovation campus here at Sci-Tech Daresbury, our tenants often find the strong regional transport links – and proximity to major cities such as Liverpool and Manchester – make it easier for them to attract and retain talent, host partners and investors, and maintain close ties with academic, clinical and commercial networks. This accessibility can also become increasingly important as your team grows, and external engagement becomes a larger part of your day-to-day operations.

On that note, we’re proud to have a long history of collaboration with local universities. The Universities of Salford, Liverpool and Manchester are just a few of the institutions who partner with our team at Sci-Tech Daresbury to provide job opportunities for graduate students.

Innovation Zone advantages at Sci-Tech Daresbury

Development is about to begin on Violet Phase Two, a landmark new facility at Sci-Tech Daresbury. Combining specialist labs and dedicated office space, Violet Phase Two is part of the Liverpool City Region Life Sciences Innovation Zone – a government-designated investment zone that’s been created to accelerate growth in science, technology and innovation-led sectors.

Innovation Zones are designed to attract and retain high-growth businesses by combining targeted financial incentives with locations that already have strong research, talent and infrastructure foundations.

That means you can enjoy a number of tangible benefits by basing your own organisation within Violet Phase Two, or future campus developments within the Innovation Zone. These include:

• 100 percent Business Rate Relief* for five years
• Relief from employers’ National Insurance contributions for three years (worth up to £6,582 per employee)
• Access to Enhanced Capital Allowances

(*T’s and C’s apply)

Together, these incentives can help notably reduce your operating costs, and free up capital for reinvestment into your research, staff, and long-term growth.

Supporting life sciences growth beyond the lab

As any life sciences business grows, the need for dedicated office space becomes increasingly difficult to ignore. Labs obviously remain essential to the business as a whole, but only a dedicated office space is capable of facilitating the regulatory, operational and commercial activity necessary for long-term progress. It plays a central role in enabling clearer decision-making and long-term planning, as well as stronger collaboration within your organisation between your scientific, regulatory, operational and commercial teams.

At Sci-Tech Daresbury, office space is designed to sit naturally alongside laboratory environments, so that it can accommodate the needs of your business as it evolves. With flexible layouts, proximity to specialist facilities and a campus environment built around

science and innovation, it provides a practical setting as you move beyond lab-only working models.

If you’re starting to think more seriously about how your office environment fits into your wider growth plans, start exploring our available office space at Sci-Tech Daresbury. It’s the perfect opportunity to create a workspace that aligns your commercial, operational and scientific activity as your business continues to grow.