Standing desks for offices: a buyer's checklist for teams

What matters more in a shared space

• 01Anti-collision: in an open office, desks meet drawer units, window sills and each other. A frame that senses resistance and backs off prevents damage and complaints.
• 02Memory presets: essential for hot-desking. Without them, people stop adjusting and the investment is wasted.
• 03Cable management: this is a safety inspection issue, not a tidiness one. Moving desks with loose cables create trip hazards and pulled plugs.
• 04Warranty length and what it covers: frames outlast controllers. Ask specifically about the control box and handset, which are the usual failure points.
• 05Spares after the warranty: can you still buy a keypad in year six, or is the desk landfill?

Budgeting per head

Below about £250 a desk you are buying single-motor frames with short electronics warranties, which becomes a support cost. Between roughly £300 and £450 you get dual motors, real load ratings and long frame warranties.

Above £600 a desk you are usually paying for brand or bespoke finishes rather than better mechanisms — worth it for a client-facing floor, hard to justify for a back office.

Add cable management to the per-head figure from the start. It is the line most often cut and the one most often regretted.

Sizing a floor

For most desk-based roles, 140×70 cm per person is the sensible standard: it takes two screens and leaves working space. 120×60 works for laptop-first roles and touchdown desks.

Leave 70–80 cm of clear floor behind each desk for the chair and for standing, and check that desks do not rise into window sills, shelves or wall-mounted units. Measure the lowest obstruction, not the average.

Questions worth asking any supplier

• 01What is the dynamic load rating, and is it per desk or per leg?
• 02What is the lead time for 20 desks, and what happens if you are short?
• 03Who pays for collection if a desk fails in month two?
• 04Can we buy replacement handsets and control boxes separately, and for how long?
• 05Do you deliver assembled, or is assembly on us?

How we handle team orders

Volume pricing starts at five desks and steps up at ten, twenty and fifty. Orders are invoiced with VAT for reclaim, and we can stagger delivery across a fit-out rather than dumping forty boxes in a reception on day one.

Within 80 miles of our Peterborough warehouse our own crew can deliver to the room and assemble, which for an office fit-out usually costs less than the hours your team would spend building desks.

Rolling out without disrupting the floor

Forty desks arriving at once is a fire-exit problem before it is a furniture problem. Stagger delivery across the fit-out — a floor or a team at a time — and you keep the space usable while it happens.

Build in place if you can. Moving an assembled desk through an office is harder than carrying two boxes to the spot and building it there, and it is where most damage happens.

Getting people to actually use them

The most expensive outcome is a floor of height adjustable desks that nobody adjusts. Two things fix that, and neither costs much.

• 01Set each person's presets on day one, with them standing there. If they leave the desk at its delivered height, it stays there for a year.
• 02Tell people the rhythm — roughly 20 minutes sitting, 8 standing, 2 moving — rather than telling them to stand more. A target they can picture beats an instruction.
• 03Anti-fatigue mats for anyone on a hard floor. Comfort decides whether the habit survives past week two.
• 04Have one visible person use theirs. Adoption follows the room, not the memo.

The paperwork side

For DSE assessments, a height adjustable desk helps with the workstation-height element but does not complete the assessment on its own — screen height, chair, keyboard position and breaks all still apply.

We invoice with VAT shown for reclaim, and can supply a single consolidated invoice for a multi-desk order or one per cost centre if your finance team prefers. Ask when you request the quote.

What it costs for a team

Cable management is charged separately and is worth budgeting at the same time — it is the line most often cut and most often regretted.

Questions, answered.