Written by Nick Donnelly
Discover our top workspaces in East London and go mingle with the best of London’s East End. Scanning through our selection of East London workspaces, it’s immediately clear that the East End, more than anywhere else in London, is an irresistible mix of old and new. On one side, it’s home to a flower market established all the way back in 1869. On the other side, it’s also where you buy cereal for £5 a bowl, sample some of London’s best pop-up food stands and enjoy the buzzing club nights.
But where do entrepreneurs, freelancers, and start-ups hang out? There is plenty of comfortable workspaces across East London and we are going to share with you some of our favourites.
Club Row Collective: Shoreditch
Club Row Collective offers local start-ups and small businesses a flexible boutique coworking space in the heart of Shoreditch. They have managed to create a cool modern working environment, offering 28 residential desks with flexible hot-desking options as well as virtual office services. Shoreditch has become the place to be for startups in fashion, media and tech companies. Did you know that there are more start-ups from Shoreditch than any other place in Europe?
This workspace is perfect for a start-up or small business that wants a central London location, without paying typical London rent. Also, this office is great for networking with other small businesses and creating lasting relationships for your companies future growth. Surrounded by thriving nightlife, coffee culture and art scene – there is no better place to work.
House of Creative:
House of Creative have now been operating for over 3 years in East London. The space at 229 Creative, on Shoreditch High Street is fantastic for freelancers, start-ups and businesses looking for a cost-effective and friendly space to work from. Join House of Creative and benefit from unlimited use of meeting rooms to impress your clients, showers, 24/7 access, free Wifi and a full-time office manager and receptionist. Current tenants benefit from the stylish meeting and conference rooms, high spec IT and support services available, all to help you grow your business. Just round the corner is the famous Shoreditch Grind, stop by for a quick coffee and a bite to eat.
Hoxton Mix
Join the Hoxton Mix! Here you will find private, fully serviced modern office suites, located in the heard of Old Street. Dubbed “Silicon Roundabout” and well known for being the centre of cutting edge development in the digital sector, the Hoxton Mix workspace is located only 2 minutes from Old Street tube station. As a private office tenant you’ll have the luxury of working independently in an enclosed office space in the heart of London’s Tech City while being connected to The Hoxton Mix community. You will also be pleased to know that the office is 24/7, 365 days a year!
Second Home:
Second Home is based near Spitalfields Market and Brick Lane, but it’s not your average office building, as the main entrance shows. From the front you can’t miss the giant, curved plate-glass windows, with bright-orange wooden benches sitting on the inside. The building use to be a carpet factory, but it is now something very different. The office has its own in-house restaurant called Jago, serving Southern European, Middle Eastern and Ashkenazi cuisines – try the orange and polenta cake for dessert.
There are some cool companies for you to join in Second Home, including Dattch, Foursquare and TaskRabbit. All of the electricity in the building in green energy and there are over 1,000 plants and trees inside the building! Want to bring your business here? Don’t hold your breath. Second Home has turned down around 70 companies who have also wanted to be based there.
Why is it so popular? For starters, the architects added colour filters and special lightbulbs to create an office that makes you want to work. Second Home also hosts yoga sessions and music performances for its members – bonus!
Google Campus:
The staff are friendly and always on hand if you have any questions. There are also a variety of events at the Campus almost every evening, hosting anything from demo nights to advice workshops on bootstrapping your business – great for networking! They have extensive help and support for start-ups and is located in one of the most trendy area of London. If you want to get a good spot and spend the day there, we recommend getting there for 9am sharp – it gets packed up pretty quickly.
The Hub Islington:
This is where co-working got started – Islington was the first of the two Hubs to be based in London. The Hub Islington is a London co-working space that’s just a two minute walk from Angel tube station. It offers a mix of freelancers, small businesses and micro-entrepreneurs, brought together because they do work that has a social purpose. Their goal is to create work that makes the world a better place, whether that means running a sustainability social enterprise, organising gamified treks around London, or writing about cultural and social issues.
If you want to find a co-working space where people actually talk to each other, then this is the place to be. Membership of the HUB gives you access to a community of like-minded co-workers, a hot-desk in the heart of Islington, an online network and a programme of events (including a Freelance Rights talk, which you must check out) to help connect, educate and inspire you. This space combines the best of a friendly cafe, business incubator, creative events space and a fully serviced office.
