Planning a leadership away day in London
The best London venues for a leadership planning day have daylight, wall space for paper and room to break into groups of four. These are ten we'd shortlist, with restaurants and evening ideas.
London has thousands of meeting rooms, which makes choosing harder, not easier. These are the venues we'd shortlist for a leadership planning day: daylight, walls you can stick paper to, room to break into fours, and somewhere else to have lunch.
Ten venues we'd shortlist in and around London
What we look for: daylight, walls you can stick paper to, space to break into fours, and somewhere else to have lunch. A U-shaped table looks smart and kills conversation.
Hotel and boardroom
The Ned
City, by Bank
The former Midland Bank headquarters, with private meeting rooms and dining under one roof. Good when the board wants somewhere that feels like an occasion.
One Great George Street
Westminster
The Institution of Civil Engineers' Edwardian headquarters off Parliament Square. Formal boardrooms for a board away day that needs to feel serious.
Characterful space
Kings Place
King's Cross
A canal-side arts venue with daylight rooms, a few minutes' walk from King's Cross St Pancras. Easy for teams travelling in from the north.
The Royal Institution
Mayfair
Where Faraday lectured. Rooms with a scientific history suit a day that's meant to run on evidence rather than opinion.
The Brewery
Barbican, Chiswell Street
A Georgian former brewery with rooms from boardroom size upwards, close to Moorgate and Liverpool Street.
Innovation and tech
Plexal
Here East, Stratford
An innovation centre on the Olympic Park with a 20-seat boardroom, a 250-seat theatre and breakout space. Right for an AI strategy day.
Good value
etc.venues
Several central sites
Purpose-built meeting centres with day-delegate packages. Plain, reliable and quick to book at short notice.
Conway Hall
Holborn
An independent, characterful hall with good-value meeting rooms, near Holborn station.
Country house within an hour
Cliveden House
Taplow, Berkshire
A grand country house about an hour from central London, for an overnight retreat where people can't slip back to the office.
Pennyhill Park
Bagshot, Surrey
A country house hotel and spa with a dedicated meetings wing, under an hour from central London by car.
Dinner for the team
Somewhere that takes a group of eight to fifteen without splitting the table.
Hawksmoor
Several sites
Private dining rooms that take a leadership team comfortably, and a menu nobody argues about.
Dishoom
Several sites
Big sharing feasts for groups. Good for a team that needs to loosen up after a long day.
Blacklock
City, Soho, Shoreditch
Long tables and 'all in' sharing menus, which suit a group better than a la carte.
St. JOHN
Smithfield
Nose-to-tail British cooking with a private room. The one people talk about the next morning.
Hide
Piccadilly
Private dining for a board dinner that needs to impress, overlooking Green Park.
Evening activities that aren't cheesy
Short, a bit competitive, and over in an hour, so nobody feels trapped.
Puttshack
Several sites
Tech-scored crazy golf. Competitive enough to be fun, easy enough that nobody's left out.
Flight Club
Several sites
Social darts with automatic scoring, in groups of up to ten per oche.
Electric Shuffle
Several sites
Shuffleboard with automated scoring. A good second activity after dinner.
clueQuest
King's Cross
Escape rooms for teams of three to five. A useful mirror of how the team actually works under time pressure.
Bounce
Farringdon
Ping pong, food and drink. Low skill threshold, high noise.
Getting there
Most of these are within 15 minutes of a mainline terminus: King's Cross St Pancras for Kings Place, Liverpool Street for The Brewery and The Ned, Stratford (Elizabeth line) for Plexal. Cliveden is about 40 minutes by train to Taplow, then a short taxi.
Planning facilitation in London
We run strategy days, away days and ai strategy workshops in London, at any of these venues or your own.
Questions people ask first
Do you get paid for recommending these venues?
No. We don't take commission from any venue, restaurant or activity on this page. They're here because they suit a leadership planning day.
Can you run our day at a venue that isn't listed?
Yes. Tell us the room and we'll plan around it, anywhere in or around London. What matters most is daylight, wall space for paper and room to break into groups of four.
How many people should be in the room?
Eight to fifteen is the sweet spot for making decisions. Everyone there should be deciding, informing a decision or owning the work that follows. We run larger groups too, with more structure.
Where do you work?
Anywhere in the UK, including London, Manchester and Birmingham, plus Europe and the US. In person or online.
Researched October 2026. We don't take commission, and listing a venue doesn't mean we've run a session there. Check availability and prices direct.
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Tell us what has to be decided.
Thirty minutes with Matt Roberts. Tell us who'll be in the room and what you need by the end, and we'll tell you how we'd run it.