Moving Office: The IT Checklist That Starts Twelve Weeks Out

Office moves go wrong in one specific way: everything is arranged except the internet connection, which turns out to need eight weeks and some pavement work.

Here is a timeline that avoids it.

Twelve weeks out: connectivity

The first thing to do, before anything else, because it is the only item you cannot compress.

Check what is actually available at the new address. Not the postcode — the specific building. Provision varies between units on the same estate.

Order early and expect delay. Where infrastructure already reaches the building, a few weeks. Where it does not, several months, involving wayleaves, permits and physical work. Neither urgency nor money reliably shortens this.

Arrange a backup. A mobile connection for the first weeks, ordered now, so that a delayed primary circuit is an inconvenience rather than a crisis. Keep it afterwards as failover — see business broadband explained.

Confirm what happens to the old connection. Notice periods, overlap costs, and whether you can keep both running during the move. You will want an overlap.

Ten weeks out: survey and design

Visit the new premises with the layout plan and decide:

Where the cabinet goes — ventilated, secure, with power, and not somewhere that floods or gets used for storage. Where outlets are needed, allowing for growth. Where wireless access points should be, based on the building rather than on where cabling is convenient.

Also establish what the building already has. Existing cabling of unknown grade and unknown condition should be tested before you rely on it, and frequently should be replaced.

Eight weeks out: order equipment and book installation

Cabling installation booked for a date before the move, ideally before furniture arrives.

Any new network equipment ordered, allowing for supply delays. Confirm the electrical work needed for the cabinet, and arrange an uninterruptible power supply.

If you use IP telephony, confirm that your numbers move with you — they normally do. If you are on traditional lines, establish the portability position now, because it may constrain the whole move.

Six weeks out: the inventory

List everything that needs to move or be replaced. Computers, monitors, printers, servers, phones, the postage machine, the card terminal, the alarm, the door entry, the CCTV recorder.

For each, note what it connects to and who arranges the move. The items that catch people out are the ones with contracts attached — alarm monitoring, card payment terminals and franking machines all typically need the provider involved and often need notice.

Also update your address with everyone who holds it: domain registrar, certificate providers, banks, insurers, and any service that verifies your business address.

Four weeks out: cabling in, tested

Installation complete, every run certified, everything labelled, documentation handed over. See network cabling done properly.

If the connection has arrived, get the network built and tested in the empty building. A network proven before anybody depends on it is worth a great deal.

Two weeks out: the plan and the comms

Write the move-day sequence: what is switched off, when, in what order, and what is switched on at the other end.

Confirm backups are current and verified. Take a full backup immediately before anything is unplugged, and check it is restorable — moving hardware is exactly when a disk fails.

Tell customers and suppliers when you will be unreachable and how to reach you meanwhile. Arrange call diversion.

Agree with your team what they can do during the gap — most people can work from home or from a phone hotspot for a day if they know in advance.

Move day

Ideally a Friday, so there is a weekend to resolve problems.

Sequence matters: shut down servers properly, label every cable as it comes out, transport equipment carefully, and set up the network at the new site before connecting anything else.

Test in this order: internet, then internal network, then servers and printers, then phones, then a full end-to-end check of something a customer would do — send an email in and out, take a test payment, print from a workstation.

Test the customer-facing things last and explicitly. Businesses discover their card terminal or their main phone line is not working when a customer tries to use it.

The first week

Have more support available than seems necessary. Expect a steady stream of small things: a printer nobody had set up, a piece of software licensed to the old network, wireless coverage worse than expected in one corner.

Walk the building and test wireless properly rather than waiting for complaints.

Then keep the old connection running for a couple of weeks if you can. It is cheap insurance and it has rescued plenty of moves.

Afterwards

Update the network documentation to reflect the new site. Decommission the old premises properly — connections cancelled, equipment collected, and anything holding data wiped rather than left behind.

Our infrastructure team plans and delivers office moves across Suffolk and Norfolk, starting with the connectivity order. Start a conversation as early as you can — the lead times are the whole problem.