Where does occupier intent come from?
Intent evidence arrives through four broad channels, and it pays to be precise about which one a given data product actually uses.
- Public-record intent — registered, dated events: lease expiries and breaks, planning applications, company filings, EPC pressure. Hard evidence, available to anyone willing to do the joining work.
- Company-growth intent — hiring velocity, funding rounds, headcount outgrowing the recorded floor area. Circumstantial but powerful in combination.
- Reported market intent — property requirements and appointments reported by agents and the trade press. Reliable but late: by the time a requirement is public, advisers are usually already engaged.
- First-party intent — a company telling you directly, or behavioural signals on your own website. The strongest evidence and the rarest.
Most of what is sold as B2B “intent data” is a fifth thing: topic-level digital research behaviour (which companies are reading about office furniture this week). That has its uses, but it is not evidence of a property decision — a lease event is.
What are the main intent signals?
| Signal | What it suggests | Typical warning |
|---|---|---|
| Lease expiry approaching | A forced decision: renew, renegotiate, relocate or restructure the space | 12–24 months |
| Break clause window opening | A strategic review of the space, even if the company stays | 9–18 months |
| Planning application on an occupied office | A refurbishment or reconfiguration already being designed | 3–12 months |
| Sustained office-based hiring | Headcount pressing against the current floor plate | 6–18 months |
| New workplace / operations appointment | Someone has been hired to own a workplace change | 3–12 months |
| Corporate transaction (funding, M&A, new PSC) | Consolidation, expansion or rebrand-driven works | 6–18 months |
| Poor EPC at the current building | Regulatory pressure forcing works or a move | 12–36 months |
Which signals disqualify a lead?
Intent data is as much about who not to call. Overdue accounts, strike-off notices, winding-up petitions and shrinking headcount are negative signals: a company fighting for survival is not commissioning a fit-out. A serious intent model scores these against the positive evidence rather than ignoring them — knowing who to stop chasing is worth as much as knowing who to call.
Why is one signal never enough?
Any single event has innocent explanations. A lease expiry can end in a quiet renewal; a hiring surge can be absorbed by hybrid working; a planning application can be the landlord’s. Probability compounds when independent registers agree — a lease clock plus growth plus a workplace hire is a different proposition from any one alone. This is why Signal scores combinations and recency rather than publishing raw event feeds, and why every score shows its dated evidence.
Is occupier intent data GDPR-compliant?
Done properly, yes — because the profiling is of companies and buildings, not people. Lease records, filings and planning applications are corporate events in public registers. UK GDPR concerns arise with personal data: where decision-maker contacts are attached to a lead, they must be business contact details from compliant sources, processed under a documented legitimate-interest basis with opt-outs honoured. What a responsible provider never does is profile individuals’ private behaviour and call it occupier intent.
How do BD teams actually use it?
Three patterns dominate. Prioritisation: rank a patch by intent score so the week’s calls go to companies in a decision window (771 London companies qualify right now). Timing: enter conversations 12–18 months before a lease event, while the occupier is still framing stay-vs-go, rather than after a requirement is public. And territory design: see where intent is concentrating by district and sector, and put BD effort where the market is actually moving — the pattern the London Office Movement Index publishes monthly.