Office moves often go wrong on the IT, not the furniture. The desks always arrive; it's the internet that isn't connected, the phones that don't ring, and the comms room that's an empty cupboard on day one. The fix is to treat IT as the long-lead item it actually is: and to start early.
Start here: the long-lead items
These have the longest lead times and will set your whole timeline, so order them first:
- Business internet. Fibre and business-grade services can take weeks to provision. Order the moment the lease is signed.
- Phone number porting. Moving numbers between carriers takes time and paperwork.
- Structured cabling. Data points and the comms room need to be designed and installed before furniture arrives.
The full checklist
6-8 weeks out
- Order internet (primary + a 4G/5G failover).
- Design the comms room / rack and structured cabling.
- Audit what hardware moves, what gets replaced, what gets retired.
- Plan the network: firewall, Wi-Fi coverage, VLANs.
2-4 weeks out
- Confirm cabling and comms-room install dates.
- Stage and pre-configure new hardware and the firewall.
- Schedule phone system porting and test call flows.
- Book the physical move and label everything.
Move week
- Verify internet is live and tested at the new site.
- Stand up the rack, firewall, switches, and Wi-Fi.
- Move and reconnect devices; test logins, printing, and phones.
- Keep the old site live until the new one is confirmed working.
Day one
- Walk the floor: every desk online, phones ringing, Wi-Fi solid.
- Have support on-site for the inevitable small issues.
The cutover principle
The golden rule: don't disconnect the old site until the new one is proven. Overlap the two for a short window so a problem on move day is an inconvenience, not an outage. Doing the cutover out-of-hours means staff arrive to a working office, not a building site.
How Umbrella Tech helps
Our office relocation work brings internet services, cabling, the comms room, network, phones and hardware under one project plan, with an out-of-hours cutover and support on the first day in the new space.
Discuss your move before you sign the new lease.