Moving IT Equipment in an Office Move: What Your IT Team Should Do

An office move puts every computer, screen, printer and switch the business owns onto a van at the same time. For a few hours, the equipment is out of its locked room, off its network and in the hands of people who are not your IT team. That is when the plan matters most, and it is the part of a move that a removal company cannot plan for you.

This guide is written for whoever looks after the IT, whether that is an in-house team, one person who "does the computers" or an outside supplier. It sets out which tasks are yours, which are the removal crew's and which belong to the building, then works through the register, the labels, the data, the packing, the server kit, the cutover and the old equipment you are leaving behind.

Most IT problems on a moving weekend come from a task that sat between two people. The general who-does-what table in moving office out of hours covers access, lifts, parking and the building. This one goes down to the IT tasks only, because that is where the gaps tend to be. The AFS column comes from our quotation terms and the service we publish. The other two columns are the usual split, which your own supplier contract or building rules may change.

Three lines in that table cause most of the confusion, so they are worth spelling out.

• Shutting down and reconnecting. The crew will not switch off a server, pull a patch lead out of a switch or plug a desk back in. That is not caution for its own sake: the people who know the order things must go down and come back up are your IT people, and a crew guessing at it is how a database gets corrupted
• Who carries the data. A device that holds personal or commercial data is your responsibility in transit as much as at rest. The cleanest answer is that it never goes on the van at all
• Power and data at the new office. Floor boxes, data points and the internet line have to be live before move day. If they are not, the crew can place every desk perfectly and nobody can work

If an IT supplier is doing the technical work, give them a copy of the matrix with their name in the column. A supplier who has agreed in writing to the shutdown time and the restart time is a supplier who turns up for both.

It helps to be exact about this, because "the movers will handle the IT" is one of the most common assumptions in an office move, and it is wrong for any removal company that does not also sell IT services. We are a removal company. We do not offer IT services of any kind.

What the crew does

• Wraps screens, base units, printers and peripherals for transport, using our materials if packing is booked
• Keeps each desk's equipment together, so a desk's tower, screens, dock and cable bag travel and arrive as one group
• Loads IT equipment in the order your IT lead asks, so the network kit comes off first
• Carries everything to the desk codes on your floor plan and places it on or under the right desk
• Moves racks and cabinets where they have been agreed in advance, after photos

What the crew does not do

• Shut down, unplug, disconnect or reconnect any computer, server, network device, phone system or other electrical equipment
• Remove equipment from racks, take drives out, or open cases
• Erase, wipe or destroy data, or provide certificates for it
• Install cabling, data points, sockets or the internet line
• Take old equipment away for recycling or disposal

Two other quotation terms matter for IT kit. Term 6 reads: "Fragile items, glass, mirrors, televisions and artwork remain subject to the insurer's exclusions and any declared-value requirements. Specialist wooden crating is not included unless agreed in writing." Screens are fragile items, so tell us about anything high-value when you ask for the quote, so cover and packing can be set correctly. Term 7 reads: "Goods packed by the customer are not covered for loss or damage arising from insufficient, unsuitable or improper packing." If your IT team packs the kit itself, it needs to be packed properly, which the packing section below covers.

The full set of what our office service includes is on the London office removals page.

Before anything is unplugged, the IT team needs a list of every device that is moving, with its serial number. Not a count of computers, a list. It is the only way to answer two questions with certainty on Monday morning: did everything arrive, and is everything where it should be.

What the register should hold

• A label code for every device, from the scheme in the next section
• Make, model and serial number. The serial is what proves that the screen at desk 12 is the screen that left desk 12. It is also what your insurer and any leasing company will ask for if something goes missing
• The user or the role it belongs to, so a missing device is someone's problem to report the moment they sit down
• Whether it holds data, and if so, whether it is encrypted. That decides whether it goes on the van or is carried by hand
• Its destination code at the new office
• Moving or not moving. Equipment that is being retired, returned to a leasing company or sold goes on the register too, marked as such, so it does not end up on the van by mistake

When to build it

Build the register from a walk round the office, not from the last audit. Desks drift, screens get swapped, and printers that were meant to go back to the lease company two years ago are still in the corner. A walk-round with a phone camera and a spreadsheet, a few weeks before the move, is enough for most small and mid-sized offices.

How it is used on the day

The register is checked twice. Once as equipment leaves the old office, ticked off as each device is wrapped and labelled, and once as it arrives at the new office, ticked off at its desk. Whoever does the arrival check should be from your side, not ours, because only your team can tell a working setup from a merely placed one. The crew lead will walk the new office with your contact before leaving, but the register is your record.

The basics of office labelling, a destination code on every item and a matching floor plan, are in how to label office furniture and equipment. IT kit needs one more layer: each device at a desk needs its own label, because a desk with two screens, a dock and a tower has four things that look like they could go anywhere.

A scheme that works for most offices is floor, then position, then device type, then a number where there is more than one. Here is a worked example for one desk, a printer and the comms room on the fourth floor of a new office.

Rules that make the scheme work

• Use the new office's numbers. Desk 12 is desk 12 on the new floor plan. Nobody unloading a van needs to know where the screen used to sit
• Label the device and its packaging. A label on a box is lost when the box is opened; a label on the screen itself is not. Use labels that peel off cleanly from plastic
• One cable bag per desk, labelled with the desk code. Leads are the thing that goes missing most, and a desk with no display lead is a desk that does not work
• Keep a separate prefix for hand-carried items. In the example, HAND items never go on the van. The register shows who signed each one out and who signed it back in
• Put the label where the crew will see it when the item is wrapped. A label hidden under a blanket is no use at the other end. Ask the crew to leave it visible, or label the wrapping as well

Test the scheme on one desk before labelling the whole office. If someone who has never seen your floor plan can put that desk back together from the labels alone, the scheme works.

Every laptop, desktop, phone and backup drive in the office probably holds personal data about staff, customers or both. Moving it does not change the business's responsibility for it. If anything, a move is when that responsibility is most at risk, because devices are out of their usual places and more people than usual are handling them.

The Information Commissioner's Office says the law does not require encryption, but gives it as an example of an appropriate measure to protect personal data, and says it is especially effective if the device holding the data is lost or stolen. Its guidance is that storage encryption should be enabled on laptops, smartphones and tablets that hold personal information, and it warns that full disk encryption may not be turned on by default, so you should check. It also points out that encryption is only as good as the password, which should not be kept with the device. The ICO notes that this guidance is under review following the Data (Use and Access) Act, so check the current version before relying on its exact wording.

The National Cyber Security Centre, in its small organisations guide, says that phones, laptops and tablets hold important business information and that access to all devices should be locked down, including personal devices that staff use for work. It says this is especially important for phones and tablets because they leave the office and are more likely to be lost or stolen. Its advice is a 6-digit PIN or a strong password at the least, with fingerprint or face recognition better still, a different PIN or password for each device, and any default password changed.

A pre-move device check for the IT team

• Encryption on. Confirm full disk encryption is enabled on every laptop and every desktop that holds personal data, and record it in the register
• Locks on. Every laptop and phone locks with a PIN, password or biometric, and nobody has written the password on a note in the laptop bag
• Updates done. The NCSC advises keeping devices up to date; a move is a good time to catch the ones that have fallen behind, and to spot any that are no longer supported
• Recovery keys held centrally. If an encrypted laptop has to be recovered after the move, the key needs to be somewhere other than the laptop
• Remote management working. If your devices are managed centrally, check every device that is moving shows up before the move, so a lost one can be located or locked

Back everything up and test a restore before the shutdown. The NCSC's backup advice and how to time the backup against the move are covered in moving office out of hours; the point here is only that the backup should not travel in the same vehicle as the thing it is a backup of.

The simplest way to protect the data in transit is to separate it from the furniture. A removal vehicle is a secure place for desks and screens, but there is no reason for a laptop to travel in it when it can travel in its owner's bag.

What staff should carry

• Laptops and their chargers. Staff take them home on the last working day and bring them to the new office. A laptop on the van is a laptop that cannot be used over the weekend, too
• Phones and tablets that belong to the business
• Backup drives, USB sticks and any removable storage. These should be carried by a named person from the IT team, signed out on the register and signed in at the other end
• Anything holding data the business would have to report if it were lost. If in doubt, it is hand-carried

What travels with the crew

• Desktop base units, wrapped and labelled, provided they are encrypted or hold no personal data
• Screens, docks, keyboards, mice and headsets
• Printers and copiers, once your IT team or the lease company has dealt with any stored scans
• Network switches, access points and patch panels that have been removed and boxed
• Empty racks and cabinets, where agreed

Printers are easy to forget. The ICO's public guidance on deleting data points out that personal data can be stored on any device with a permanent memory, including printers. A multifunction copier that scans to email may hold copies of everything it has scanned. If it is leased, ask the lease company what they need before it moves; if it is yours, treat it like any other device that holds data.

If you book packing with your move, the crew brings the materials and they are itemised in your quote. Our standard materials are small / book boxes, large double-wall boxes, wardrobe boxes, tape, bubble wrap, packing paper, stretch wrap, mattress covers. Bubble wrap and stretch wrap are what most screens and base units travel in, with each desk's items kept together.

Purpose-made cartons are a different matter. Our price list says: "Specialist materials — TV cartons, picture and mirror cartons, specialist crates and additional protection — are not included and are quoted separately." A monitor carton is the same kind of specialist item as a TV carton, so if you want screens boxed rather than wrapped, ask for it in the quote and it will be priced as its own line. Protection for a large television, such as a meeting room screen, is quoted by TV size & protection required.

If your IT team packs the kit itself

• Keep the original boxes if you still have them. A screen's own carton, with its inserts, is the best protection there is
• Screens stand upright. Pack and carry them on their edge, not flat, and never stack anything on top of a screen
• Take stands off where they come off easily, and bag the screws with the stand
• Nothing loose inside a base unit's box. Leads go in the desk's cable bag, not rattling round with the tower
• Printers travel empty. Take out paper trays' contents and anything your printer's manual says to remove for transport, and tape doors closed
• Seal and label every box on two sides, with the desk code from your scheme

Remember term 7: goods packed by the customer are not covered for loss or damage arising from insufficient, unsuitable or improper packing. If you are unsure whether a screen is packed well enough, ask the crew lead on the day; it is much cheaper to rewrap a screen than to replace it.

Packing an office move covers the order to pack in, photographing cables and keeping server kit apart from general furniture.

This is the part of an IT move to plan with the most care, and the part where we make the fewest promises without seeing it first. Racks vary enormously: a wall-mounted cabinet with a switch in it is a two-person carry, while a full-height floor-standing rack can weigh more than a lift is rated for once it is loaded.

What we need from you

• Photos of every rack and cabinet, front and side, with the doors open
• Whether it will be empty or loaded when the crew arrives. Your IT team decides that, not us. Many IT teams prefer to remove servers and switches and box them separately, so the cabinet moves empty
• Its size and, if you know it, its weight, along with the goods lift's size and rated load at both buildings
• The route. Comms rooms are often at the back of the floor, behind narrow doors or up a step

What we will tell you

From the photos and details, we will say whether we can move it, how, with how many people, and what protection it needs. Our terms set out what happens when something cannot be moved safely through the normal route: "If an item cannot be moved safely through the normal access route, AFS Removals may require the item to be dismantled, may recommend a specialist lifting service, or may decline to move the item." For a heavy loaded rack, that may mean the rack is emptied first, or that a specialist is the right answer. Specialist wooden crating is not included unless agreed in writing. Ask us before you plan around any particular answer.

Whatever moves, the server and network equipment should be loaded last at the old office so it comes off first at the new one. Your IT lead can then be building the network in the comms room while the crew is still placing desks.

Timing the move window itself, the Friday-to-Monday plan and telling staff are covered in moving office out of hours. This is the technical order inside that window: what your IT team does, in what sequence, so the crew is never waiting and nothing comes back up before the thing it depends on.

The order in the middle matters most. If the crew arrives to find servers still running, they wait, and waiting is paid time. If desks are connected before the network is up, nobody can tell whether a desk works. Agree the timings with your IT lead and give them to us when you book, so the crew arrives at the right moment.

Most office moves leave something behind: old desktops, screens that do not match the new setup, a printer at the end of its lease, a box of phones in a drawer. An office move is a good time to deal with it, but it is a job for the business, and it needs two steps in order.

Step one: get the data off

The ICO's cyber security tips for small businesses say you should make sure no personal data is left on laptops, smartphones or any other devices before you dispose of them, and suggest deletion software or a specialist to wipe the data. Its guidance on deleting data warns that simply reformatting a drive is not enough, because the data can be recovered with freely available software.

For phones, tablets and laptops being sold, donated or traded in, the NCSC recommends the device's own erase or factory reset feature, after a backup. It advises checking first which accounts the device signs into, and making sure any account verification, such as SMS codes, works on another device before the erase. When the reset offers to keep personal files, do not choose that option.

Step two: send it somewhere legal

Old IT equipment from a business is business waste. GOV.UK says a business must try to prevent, reuse, recycle or recover waste in that order, complete a waste transfer note for each load that leaves the premises, and check that the carrier taking it is registered. The WEEE Regulations exist to reduce the electrical waste that is incinerated or sent to landfill by encouraging recovery, reuse and recycling.

The Environment Agency's classification guidance adds that a business must classify its waste before it is collected, and that the screens, circuit boards, batteries and plastic parts of computer monitors and other display devices may contain hazardous chemicals or persistent organic pollutants. If you are not sure whether an item is hazardous, the guidance says to treat it as hazardous as a precaution. In practice, that means old screens and computers need a recycler who handles electrical waste, not a general skip.

Where we fit in

We do not take equipment away for disposal, and we do not offer waste clearance. Our quotation terms say: "Disposal of general waste or customer-owned materials is excluded." Arrange the erase and the collection for the week before the move, and mark the items on the register as not moving. Equipment that is meant to be thrown away has a way of ending up on the van, and every item on the van costs carrying time. Where old kit is staying in the old office until a recycler collects it, label it clearly, keep it in one place, and tell the crew lead when they arrive.

The more the quote knows about the IT, the less the day is spent working it out. With your inventory and addresses, send:

• A count of desks and the equipment on each, from the asset register: towers, screens, docks, printers
• Photos of any racks or cabinets, with whether they will be empty or loaded
• Anything high-value or unusually fragile, such as large meeting room screens or specialist equipment, so cover and packing can be set
• Whether you want screens wrapped or boxed. Boxing in monitor cartons is a specialist material priced as its own line
• Your IT timings: when shutdown will be finished at the old office, and when the IT lead will be at the new one
• Both buildings' rules for the goods lift, the loading bay and moving equipment in and out

What the move itself costs, how the hours and crew are set and how desks are priced per item are in what office removals in London cost. For a home move alongside the office one, start from our London house removals page.

Whatever the size of the office, every move with us includes:

• Goods in Transit cover. Included on every move, not sold as an add-on.
• Public Liability cover. In place on every job, at home or at work.
• Our own crew. Every mover is employed by AFS. We never pass your move to a subcontractor.
• One named coordinator. Your single point of contact, from the quote to the last box.

Packing materials are itemised in the quote when packing is booked. Specialist materials, such as purpose-made screen cartons, are quoted separately.

Moving home as well as the office, or moving staff into London for the new site? Our London house removals team works from the same rate card.