Save the Children UK has started hosting three additional charities at its London head office. 

The charity said Care International, Sarcoma UK and Farm Africa had this month begun subletting space in its building.

Save the Children UK already hosts four other charities: Young Lives vs Cancer and the oceans and fishing charity Blue Ventures moved in in autumn 2023, while Action for Children and Relief International started renting space towards the end of last year.

Martin Prosser, workplace manager at Save the Children UK, said that before the Covid-19 pandemic the charity would have between 300 and 600 staff in the building at any one time but the number had since reduced to an average of about 160 between Tuesday and Thursday. 

“We started to look at our spaces that were least used and whether we could license these out to other charities,” he said. 

“Our workplace team adapted the space to enable charity space-sharing and we started to reach out informally via our various charity contacts and networks.”

About one-third of Save’s about 63,000ft² office space in Farringdon has been given over to space-sharing. 

The subletting charities pay about half the cost of managed office space in the area of Save’s office, according to Prosser. The charity has a lease on its seven-storey building in Farringdon until 2028. 

He said bringing in the additional charities had not only helped financially but had helped build an inter-charity community, which added to the culture of the building. 

Having more people in the office also added to the “buzz”, he said, making it more attractive for people to come in. 

“To support the charity community aspect of what we are trying to do, we will be holding some events for different charity functions where similar roles can network with the other charities and gain contacts and share best practices,” said Prosser. 

“The switch to remote-first and hybrid working presented challenges to managing our office space efficiently and sustainably, but we’re pleased we’ve been able to get to a model that helps us do that while being an affordable resource for other charities also doing great work.”

He said the charity had space for possibly another two charities, depending on space requirements, and was actively looking for additional tenants. 

“We are currently working through our future workspace requirements, which will be aligned with our organisational strategy and anticipated future workforce and ways of working, but we envisage keeping this space-sharing as part of our model for the future,” said Prosser.