London has been ranked as the leading destination in Europe for technology-based industries, according to CBRE’s inaugural report Understanding European Technology Clusters. Launched today, the report analyses the characteristics of tech clusters and explores future opportunities among high-performing, and emerging, tech cities.

Out of 35 cities across Europe, London is ranked in first place in CBRE’s index; followed by Paris in second, Berlin in third place and Munich and Madrid completing the top five. The report also identifies the fastest-growing, emerging European tech cities of the future as Budapest, Bucharest and Istanbul.

This ranking of European Tech Cities was developed based on employment, growth and demand credentials, propensity to generate start-ups and new patents and attractiveness for technology students and graduates.

The key findings from the report include:

• The rate of employment growth in the tech sector over the past five years has far exceeded the rate of growth across office-based employment as a whole.

• Take-up by technology-based industries for this year to the end of September has totalled 2m sq. ft., making it the most active business group in Central London so far this year.

• Rising occupational costs and the growing shortage of suitable office stock in London’s West End has resulted in tech occupiers increasingly favouring the City of London (City), Midtown and Southbank. This has fuelled the growth of new technology locations such as King’s Cross and Farringdon, while Silicon Roundabout is now firmly established as a leading European market for tech start-ups and SMEs.

• The gap in performance between core submarkets and tech submarkets, led by leasing demand from the creative/tech industry – from 2006-15, the City core (City of London and EC4) experienced rental growth of 6.3% and 5.9% respectively, while City fringe locations (such as Spitalfields/Whitechapel) recorded rental growth of 17.5% and 12.9% respectively.