Ms Pickavance added: “The best rent paid on a large Grade A letting this year is £27.50 per sq ft on the 26,564 sq ft let to Grant Thornton at Colmore Plaza. They took a 15 year lease, with 10 year tenant break and not surprisingly, substantial, but unconfirmed rent free incentive.

“Grade A rents have thus stayed static during 2011 and should still hold up on the best product in the city through 2012, but we do not see any prospect of rental growth until a substantial amount of the readily available space over 10,000 sq ft which amounts to around 1.2 million sq ft of the total, starts letting out.”

Ms Pickavance predicted that it could be two years before meaningful inroads are made into this stock although the picture was different on secondary space where there is much more stock.

“We estimate around two million sq ft - about 50 per cent of the total available office stock in the city - is what we consider to be in the ‘reasonable to good’ range of secondary space and where rents can still be found in the £10- £15 per sqft range, plus market incentives.”

The message to occupiers for 2012 in Birmingham is that if you can move this year, as you may have either a lease break or lease end, then there is a very good range of product available. This could be a once in a business lifetime chance for an occupier to upgrade their quality of premises at very competitive levels.

“Occupiers should not be put off by fees,” she added. “The economic climate has hit us too and any agent worth their salt will produce an attractive and often performance related fee package for a client, so everybody wins.”