Grade A doesn't mean what it used to. Here's what a major industry report means for your office search

The British Council for Offices has just confirmed something Office Tier List was built on. In September 2025, the BCO published Redefining the Market: Beyond Grade A, research carried out with JLL involving 89 representatives from 41 organisations and 183 survey respondents across the UK. Its conclusion, in short, is that the label "Grade A" has stopped telling businesses very much at all.

Grade A has become almost meaningless

The report found overwhelming agreement that current grading frameworks are outdated and inadequate, with the vast majority of respondents rating existing systems poorly for clarity and consistency. Separate CoStar data cited in the report shows that most UK office stock still sits at a specification more in line with Grade B than Grade A, yet a much larger share of buildings are marketed as Grade A regardless. The label, in other words, is being applied more generously than the space behind it justifies.

Rent does not help either. The report's analysis of Central London supply found no reliable link between asking rent and grade, and even among buildings marketed as Grade A, asking rents varied enormously from one submarket to the next. A high price does not confirm a high grade, and a Grade A label does not confirm a high price. Neither number, on its own, tells you what you are actually comparing.

The bar has moved, quietly

Grade A buildings completed since the pandemic are, by the report's own findings, markedly different from those built before it. Changing work patterns, technology and a heightened focus on sustainability and wellbeing have reset what best-in-class actually looks like, often faster than the grading system has kept up.

96 per cent of respondents rated sustainability certification highly important. 92 per cent said the same of energy source, and 91 per cent of the quality of common areas.

Traditional physical measures such as floor-to-ceiling heights and floor plate shape still matter, but the report describes a clear shift towards building performance and occupier experience over rigid adherence to dimensional criteria alone. How a space operates and feels is carrying more weight than a specification sheet ever could.

Super prime hasn't solved anything

Because Grade A now covers such a wide range of quality, the market invented "super prime" to describe the genuine best of the best. The report found no consensus on what that actually means. Some respondents tie it to location, others to specification, sustainability credentials or amenity provision, and a meaningful number dismissed it outright as marketing language with no real substance behind it. A second vague label layered on top of an already vague one solves nothing for the business trying to compare its options.

The industry is heading towards scoring, not single labels

The BCO's proposed fix moves away from single-word grades altogether, towards a weighted scoring matrix that assesses physical specification, building systems, sustainability and amenity separately, and that can flex between new build and retrofit. Support for this direction was clear: over 55 per cent of survey respondents favoured a scoring matrix, a further 42 per cent wanted a minimum-criteria approach, and fewer than 3 per cent thought the current system should stay as it is.

That is a credible, industry-wide signal that a single self-reported label is no longer considered good enough, from the same research and advisory community that helped define Grade A in the first place.

What this means for your search, today

Treat any grade label as a starting point, not an answer. Ask what sits behind it: EPC rating, BREEAM certification, WiredScore, occupancy density and amenity provision, rather than accepting a brochure's own description of itself.

Compare rent against total cost of occupancy, not the grade. The report's own data shows grade and rent are not reliably linked, so a higher asking price is not proof of a higher standard.

Weight sustainability and technology credentials properly. These are now rated as important as location and specification across the wider industry, not just by early adopters, so they belong in your comparison from the start.

This is exactly the gap Office Tier List exists to close

We did not wait for an industry report to say this. From the outset, Office Tier List has scored spaces on what we find when we visit, not on what an agent's brochure claims. Every verified listing carries the certifications, specification, and amenity detail the BCO's own research says businesses should be comparing, set out consistently, space by space, rather than buried in a grade that means something different depending on who is using it.

No commission, no self-reported labels, just the details that decide the whole thing made visible, and verified by us in person.

Ready to compare, not just search

Browse verified UK flex spaces, see what we found on the day we visited, and shortlist against the same criteria the industry itself now says matter most. Visit officetierlist.co.uk.

Source: British Council for Offices (2025). Redefining the Market – Beyond Grade A, research conducted with JLL UK offices research. Building stock data from CoStar.