Google has announced that it has purchased its Central Saint Giles offices for $1 billion as it continues its investment into the United Kingdom. The company said the purchase represents its “continued confidence in the office as a place for in-person collaboration and connection.” In the coming years, it plans to upgrade these offices to fit the new trends in working.
Google said that the majority of its UK employees want to come into the office some of the time but they also want the option to work from home for some of the week while others want to be fully remote. To accommodate these needs, Google is upgrading the offices with collaboration spaces for in-person teamwork, teampods will be introduced that can be reconfigured to best support focused work, collaboration, or both, and there will be a covered area outside for those who work better in the fresh air.
Outside of its offices, Google has recently delivered the Grace Hopper Atlantic cable which improves the resilience of Google services in the UK.
It has also expanded its partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions to help 10,000 job seekers gain access to free scholarships to earn a Google Careers Certificate in various high-demand and high-growth fields such as IT support, data analysis, project management, and UX design.