Team Bonding Activities London: 12 Ideas Beyond the Escape Room

Good team bonding is not a contest. It is people finding out that the quiet person in finance makes excellent bread, or that two colleagues grew up on the same street.

That is why the best team bonding activities London teams book have one thing in common. They give people something to do together, with room to talk. Making, cooking, walking and solving beat scoring and ranking.

There is a reason to be careful here. Acas commissioned YouGov to ask 1,052 employees in Great Britain, and 31% said they dislike team-building activities, the most disliked option listed. Acas recommends running activities in working hours. Pick formats where nobody has to perform. The ideas below were chosen with that in mind.

If you want the wider picture, our guide to team building activities in London covers the city by category. This post is narrower. It is about team bonding London style: small groups, real conversation, no leaderboard.

What are the best team bonding activities in London?

Here are 12 team bonding activities London teams can book or run. Ten come from London-serving suppliers in our Something Different directory. Two are free ideas you can run tomorrow. Each location is labelled.

1. Cook a meal with a refugee chef: Migrateful (London)

Migrateful is a charity that trains migrant and refugee chefs to teach corporate cookery workshops. In the team cookery session, your group cooks a full meal together under the chef’s guidance. The classes share recipes and stories from home, so the chat comes built in.

• Good for: Mixed teams who talk best with their hands busy. Each booking also helps train more chefs.
• Fit: Up to 30 people, up to 2 hours, in London.

2. Make fused glass together: E3 Creative Glass (East London)

Fused glass is one of the gentler team bonding activities London studios offer, and it suits people who say “I’m not creative”. E3 Creative Glass runs relaxed workshops where teams experiment with colour and glass, with no experience needed. Everyone leaves with a piece to take home.

• Good for: Teams with mixed personalities and abilities, and a screen-free afternoon. The Team Taster is a good first booking.
• Fit: 13 to 30 people. Options run from up to 2 hours to a full day, at your workplace or the studio, in London.

3. Try beekeeping and candle making: Bees & Refugees (London)

Bees & Refugees offers beekeeping, beeswax candle making and honey tasting. It is a social enterprise that employs refugees as beekeepers, so your booking supports refugee employment and training. Sessions can run at your workplace, their venue or outdoors.

• Good for: Teams who want something meaningful to talk about afterwards.
• Fit: 13 to 60 people, up to 2 hours, in London.

4. Open a hive, then taste the beer: Hiver Beers (London)

At Hiver Beers LTD, you suit up and open a real beehive with a working beekeeper. Then you taste the honey beers brewed from the bees’ honey. There are also honey harvest and cider making sessions.

• Good for: A relaxed day-to-night plan, such as a summer outing. Alcohol is part of the tasting, so check it suits the whole team.
• Fit: 13 to 30 people, up to 2 hours, in London.

5. Cook over an open fire: The Garden Classroom (North London)

The Garden Classroom is an Islington charity. Teams cook a shared meal over an open fire in a garden, or try forest school and fire craft skills. Every booking contributes to its work with disadvantaged people in Islington and Hackney.

• Good for: Teams who want an away day that feels nothing like a team day.
• Fit: 10 to 20 people, outdoors in North London green spaces.

6. Slow down with forest bathing: Tansy in the Wild (London)

Tansy in the Wild offers forest bathing, mindful walks and Qigong. The listing describes sessions that make conversation easier and take the pressure off. Think walking and noticing, not presenting. Of all the team bonding activities London parks and woods allow, this is among the calmest.

• Good for: Teams that have been running at full speed and want to talk to each other without an agenda.
• Fit: 31 to 60 people. Sessions run from up to 2 hours to a full day, in London, with a virtual option.

7. Laugh together: Joyful Outdoors (London)

Joyful Outdoors runs laughter yoga, which is a playful session of laughter exercises. It also runs foraging walks near Guildford and Godalming. The listing says it suits inclusive teams who do not want alcohol or competitive activities.

• Good for: Small teams who are stressed, flat or disconnected.
• Fit: Up to 12 people, up to 2 hours or a half day. Laughter yoga runs at your London workplace.

8. Solve a murder together: Moonstone Murders (London, also Leeds, Manchester, Europe and global)

Competitive? A little. But the team works as one detective squad, which makes it one of the more sociable team bonding activities London offers. At Moonstone Murders, professional comedy improvisers play the suspects and your team questions them to solve the case. The listing recommends it for teams who do not know each other well.

• Good for: Icebreakers, and teams that include new starters.
• Fit: Up to 150 people, up to 2 hours, at your workplace.

9. Build a shelter in the woods: Wildeye Adventures (London, Surrey and Kent)

Wildeye Adventures runs woodland days of shelter building, fire lighting and bushcraft. The listing says the Bushcraft and Survival Team Day is designed to build communication and collaboration. It also offers an archery-based challenge, so pick the bushcraft day for bonding.

• Good for: Teams that want to get muddy and work on one task together.
• Fit: 13 to 30 people, full day, serving London, Surrey and Kent.

10. Act out a real work problem: PlayingON (London)

PlayingON is a theatre charity. In its facilitated sessions, teams play out real workplace challenges and look at them afresh. It describes safe, enjoyable spaces where people hear one another properly.

• Good for: Teams who want to hear every voice, not just the loudest ones.
• Fit: 13 to 30 people, half day, in London.

11. Free: walk a set route and swap partners

Pick a route, such as the Regent’s Canal towpath or a loop of a park near the office. Pair people up and swap partners at each landmark. Give each pair a question to start with, such as “What was your first job?”

• Good for: Teams with no budget, and people who find big group events hard.
• Fit: Any size, as long as you can split into pairs. Allow around an hour, and check the route is step-free if anyone needs it.

12. Free: a lunch where everyone brings one dish

Ask each person to bring a dish that means something to them, and to say why in one sentence. It costs almost nothing. Among free team bonding activities London offices can run, it teaches the team more than most slide decks.

• Good for: Office managers with no event budget and a kitchen or meeting room.
• Fit: Best for up to about 20 people. Check for allergies first, and ask people to label their dishes.

How to choose team bonding activities London teams will enjoy

Start with group size when you shortlist team bonding activities London suppliers offer. Small teams of 12 or fewer can use Joyful Outdoors. Teams of 13 to 30 have the most choice: Migrateful, E3 Creative Glass, Hiver Beers, Wildeye Adventures and PlayingON all fit.

For 31 to 60 people, look at Tansy in the Wild or Bees & Refugees. For bigger groups, Moonstone Murders takes up to 150. The Dance School (London) runs beginner ballroom and Latin or salsa lessons at your workplace for 61 to 150 people. Dance gets people talking and moving together.

Then think about travel. Workplace sessions, such as Moonstone Murders and Joyful Outdoors, save travel time. Woodland and garden days need a journey, so tell people early. Wildeye serves London, Surrey and Kent, and Joyful Outdoors foraging walks run near Guildford and Godalming.

Browse more formats in Connection and Conversation and Outdoors and Nature. Team bonding London teams run around a shared task also tend to build trust between colleagues.

The Bottom Line

The best team bonding activities London offers share a pattern. People make something, cook something or walk somewhere together, and they talk while they do it. Nobody wins, and nobody is on stage.

Start with the format that suits your quietest people. Good team bonding activities London teams remember are rarely the loudest. Run it in working hours, as Acas advises. Then book the session that matches your group size.

Planning the winter party? That is a different job, and our office Christmas party guide for London covers it. For everything else, the Something Different directory lists every supplier above and more.

Related links

• Team building activities in London
• Trust building activities
• Office Christmas party ideas in London
• Something Different directory

Photos supplied by Tansy in the Wild (top), Migrateful and The Garden Classroom.