How it works
The method behind every lead, in plain terms. Where a step involves an estimate, we say so.
Where the data comes from
We read published public records. Sole traders and individuals are removed before anything else happens.
| Source | What it tells us | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Council business rates lists | Who occupies each office, its rateable value, and the date they became liable for rates there. | Live: Slough Borough Council |
| HM Land Registry registered leases | The start date and term of leases granted for more than seven years. | Being added |
| Companies House | Whether the company is still trading, what it does, and who its directors are. | Live |
| Department for Education | Schools with a new head teacher, and schools awarded Condition Improvement Fund money. | Live |
The lease clock
For each office we work out when its lease is likely to end or reach a break.
- Recorded, being added. Once HM Land Registry data is in, leases on the register will take their dates from it and carry a solid grade mark recorded.
- Estimated. Most smaller offices are on leases of seven years or less, which aren’t registered anywhere public. For these we take the date the occupier became liable for business rates and assume a typical lease of five years with a break at three. These leads carry a dashed grade mark estimated.
- Held back. Once an occupier has been at an address longer than the assumed lease, an estimate has no basis, so we hold the lead back rather than guess.
- The window. We only offer leads whose next break or expiry is within 18 months.
How leads are scored
Every lead gets a score out of 100 from four parts. The weights are the same for every client.
Timing. An expiry 12 to 18 months away scores highest, because that is when a move is decided. A break scores lower than an expiry at the same distance: in CBRE Investment Management’s review of UK lease events, about a fifth of the rent reaching a break in 2024 was left vacant, against nearly half of the rent reaching an expiry.
Size. Offices with a rateable value of £10,000 or more score higher than smaller ones, and offices outside the size range you set never reach your sheet.
Sector. From what the company does, as registered at Companies House. Professional services, finance and technology score highest; construction, transport, care and personal services lowest. A company we can’t match exactly is scored as neutral.
Grade. Recorded dates will score above estimates once registered leases are added.
What we leave out
- Sole traders and individuals.
- Entries a council withholds as personal data.
- Empty premises.
- Serviced-office operators, which we spot by their holding more than three offices in one council area.
- Premises that aren’t offices.
- Offices below the size you set, judged by rateable value.
- Companies that Companies House shows as dissolved, insolvent or being struck off.
School triggers
For firms that want education work. Schools own their buildings, so there is no lease to count down. The moments that matter are new money and a new head.
- Funding award. A school or college that has just won Condition Improvement Fund money for building work, from the Department for Education’s published outcomes.
- New head teacher. A school whose head has changed since our last weekly check of the Department for Education’s register.
Each trigger comes with the head teacher’s name and the school’s phone number and website, as the register publishes them. Triggers are exclusive like every lead, and stop being offered a year after they happen.
Exclusive, and how we keep it that way
Every lead you receive is written to a ledger before your sheet is produced. A lead goes to one firm only, and you never receive the same lead twice. If the ledger can’t be written, no sheet is produced, so a lead can’t go out twice by mistake.
Because leads are exclusive, each area can only support a few firms, so we check what’s available before you start.
Your verdicts
Each lead has three buttons: Pursue, Not for us and Already moved. We use them to measure which kinds of lead turn into real conversations, and to tune the scoring.