The removal firm will quote you confidently for the desks, the crates and the kettle. Nobody on that quote is responsible for the fact that when the boxes are unpacked, the internet needs to work, the phones need to ring, every desk needs its screens and connections alive, and the one grey box from the comms cupboard needs to have survived the van. IT is the part of an office move that decides whether Monday morning in the new place is a fresh start or a lost week, and it is the part most often left to “we’ll sort it when we’re in”.
We plan and deliver the IT side of office moves for businesses across Dundee and the central belt: the ordering that has to happen months out, the cabling that has to happen before the furniture, the move itself, and a support presence on the first morning when everyone discovers what they need.
The one thing to take from this page
Order the connectivity now. Everything else in an office move flexes; internet installation lead times do not. A standard business broadband installation at new premises runs two to six weeks; a leased line, if the new office justifies one, runs 30 to 90 working days and sometimes longer where construction is involved. These clocks start when the order is placed, not when you move, and they are the single most common cause of businesses sitting in a new office running on mobile hotspots. The moment a new address is likely (heads of terms, not keys), the connectivity order should be in. Everything else on this page has workarounds; this has only lead time.
What the service covers
A full IT relocation, end to end:
- Survey of both sites: what you have, what moves, what should retire instead of travelling (a move is the natural moment for the hardware refresh decisions you have been deferring), and what the new premises need that they lack.
- Connectivity ordered and chased: the right connection for the new site’s headcount and usage, ordered against the move date, with failover considered while the primary is pending.
- Structured cabling and WiFi design for the new office: network points where desks will actually be, access points surveyed and placed, comms cabinet installed properly rather than inherited chaos re-shelved. Cabling happens before furniture; the sequencing is half the value of planning.
- The move itself: servers and network kit shut down properly, transported insured and last-out-first-in, desk equipment labelled per person and rebuilt at the right desks; phones re-registered, printers rejoined, phone system call flows updated if numbers or menus change.
- First-morning presence: an engineer on the floor as staff arrive, because the punch list on day one (a missing cable here, a monitor input there, someone’s dock refusing) is real but short, and clearing it live is the difference between a smooth Monday and a week of tickets.
Cloud-first businesses move lighter (no server in the van is the easiest server move there is, one more argument in the file-server retirement column), but the connectivity, cabling, WiFi and desk-rebuild work is identical.
The timeline that works
Counting back from move day for a typical SME office:
- 8 to 12 weeks out (or the day heads of terms are agreed): connectivity ordered; site survey of new premises; cabling design agreed.
- 4 to 6 weeks out: cabling installed; comms cabinet, switch and firewall staged; WiFi fitted and tested against the empty floor.
- 1 to 2 weeks out: connectivity live and tested at the new site (the target, if lead times were respected); phone routing planned; every desk’s kit labelled; staff told exactly what to unplug and what to leave.
- Move day(s), ideally a Friday: production kit down cleanly after close, transported, rebuilt, tested against a checklist (every desk, every printer, every meeting room, test calls in and out) before anyone goes home.
- First morning: engineer on site, punch list cleared live; old premises’ services ceased once the new site is proven, not before.
The pattern most moves that go wrong share: steps 1 and 2 compressed into step 3’s fortnight. The pattern successful ones share: boring, because the sequencing did the work.
What it costs
Honest shapes rather than a sealed quote: a small office move (up to ~10 desks, no server, cabling largely usable) sits in the hundreds to low four figures for the IT workstream; a 20-to-50-desk move with new cabling, WiFi design and server relocation is a low-to-mid four-figure project, quoted fixed after the survey since desk count, cabling runs and server complexity drive the effort. New-site infrastructure (cabling per point, APs, cabinet kit) is priced as materials plus install alongside. For managed support clients the planning and first-morning cover are typically part of the relationship, with only the physical works charged; either way the quote arrives itemised, per the budget discipline the projects line deserves.
The comparison that matters is not against a cheaper quote but against the cost of the failure mode: a 20-person office idle for two days is thousands of pounds of payroll producing nothing, before a single customer notices.
Frequently asked questions
How far in advance should we plan an office IT move?
Order connectivity the moment the new address is realistic: two to six weeks’ lead for broadband, 30 to 90 working days for leased lines. The rest of the planning comfortably fits inside eight weeks; the connectivity clock is the one you cannot compress.
Can we move the IT ourselves and just get help with the tricky parts?
Desk equipment, labelled well, moves fine in careful hands. The parts that punish DIY are the server shutdown and transport, the network rebuild, and the sequencing; a common split is professional handling of the comms cabinet and network with staff moving their own labelled desk kit.
What happens to our internet and phone numbers when we move?
Numbers survive moves cleanly on VoIP systems (the system follows the internet, not the address); the internet service itself is a new installation at the new premises rather than a transfer, which is why the lead time exists. Businesses still on analogue lines should treat the move as the moment to migrate rather than re-installing legacy at a new site.
Should we move our old server or use the move to retire it?
Ask the question honestly before booking the van: if the server mostly serves files, the cloud migration done before the move means one less fragile thing in transit and no comms-room requirement at the new office. Servers that do move get proper shutdown, insured transport and priority rebuild.
How much downtime should we expect?
With sequenced planning: none for staff (move Friday evening, working Monday morning), with the punch-list morning absorbing the small stuff. The multi-day outages you hear about are almost always connectivity ordered late, which is preventable by calendar rather than heroics.
Do you cover moves outside Dundee?
Yes: we handle relocations across the central belt, including moves between cities we already serve. Distance changes the logistics line, not the method.
Book the survey before you book the van
If there is a new address on your horizon, the IT clock is already running. Get in touch for a move survey: both sites walked, the connectivity order placed while the lead time is still comfortable, and a fixed itemised quote for a move where the most dramatic event is finding the kettle box.
