Businesses tend to plan an office move around furniture, signage and a removalist booking, then discover in the final week that the internet connection at the new site takes a month to provision. Of everything that can go wrong in a relocation, IT has the longest lead times and the least flexibility — you can carry a desk in on the day, but you cannot carry in a fibre service. Working backwards from moving day is the only reliable approach.
Six weeks out: order the connection
The single most important task, and the one most often left late, is the internet service at the new premises. Provisioning timeframes vary enormously by building and technology: an address already served by fibre may connect in days, while a site needing new lead-in work can take six to eight weeks or longer. Check what the building actually has before signing the lease if you can, and place the order the moment the lease is signed. Where the timeline is tight, arrange a temporary 4G or 5G failover service as insurance — it is far cheaper than a week of trading without connectivity.
Four weeks out: audit what is moving
Walk the current office and list every physical device: workstations, monitors, printers, switches, access points, the server if you still have one, phone handsets, and the miscellaneous hardware that has quietly accumulated in cupboards. For each item, decide whether it moves, gets replaced, or gets disposed of. A relocation is the natural moment to retire ageing equipment, since you are handling it anyway.
Anything not making the trip needs proper handling rather than a skip. Old workstations and drives hold client data, and disposal is a legal and reputational exposure as much as a logistical one — this is the point to arrange certified IT asset disposal with documented data destruction rather than leaving it to moving day improvisation.
Three weeks out: plan the cabling
New sites rarely have data cabling where you need it. Once the desk layout is settled, mark every point requiring a network drop — desks, printers, ceiling access points, the comms cabinet — and get a cabler in before the furniture arrives. Retrofitting cabling around occupied desks costs more and works worse. Confirm the comms cabinet location has power, ventilation and enough space for your switch and router, because a cupboard that overheats will cause intermittent faults nobody thinks to blame on the cupboard.
Two weeks out: notify and document
Update the business address everywhere it is recorded: domain registrar contacts, phone service, alarm and access control providers, hardware support contracts, insurance. Photograph the current comms cabinet before anything is unplugged — it is the cheapest documentation you will ever produce and invaluable when reassembling under time pressure. Confirm your backups are current and verified, because equipment in transit is equipment at risk.
Moving weekend: sequence the work
Network infrastructure goes in first: router, switches, access points, then a confirmed working internet connection before anyone plugs in a workstation. Test connectivity, phones and printing while there is still time to escalate. Nothing is more expensive than a Monday morning where thirty staff arrive to find the connection was never actually activated.
The first week: expect stragglers
Something always surfaces — a printer that cannot be found on the new subnet, a scan-to-email that stopped working, a stubborn dead network port. Budget support time for the first week rather than assuming the project ended when the trucks left. Moves succeed on lead times and sequencing, and both are decided weeks before the boxes are packed.