The Home Office Equipment Checklist: What You Actually Need to Get Started

Setting up a home office from nothing is easy to overspend on and easy to under-plan. Most people start with a desk and a chair, work for a few weeks, and only then discover what's actually missing. This is the shortlist of home office equipment worth having from day one — not everything you could buy, just what actually earns its place on a desk.

The essentials, in order of impact

If you're kitting out a home office on a budget, this is the order we'd tackle it in:

1. Cable management — an under-desk cable rack and clips stop the workspace looking (and feeling) chaotic before anything else.
2. Screen height — a monitor or laptop stand gets your screen to eye level, which does more for neck strain than any other single change. Full detail in our monitor height and eye strain guide.
3. Posture support — a posture corrector and footrest address the two most common desk-related aches, covered in our desk posture and back pain guide.
4. Lighting — a clip-on monitor light removes screen glare that overhead lighting makes worse.
5. Desk surface — a proper desk mat finishes the setup and protects the desk itself.

Building a full kit without overspending

You don't need every piece of home office equipment on this list on day one. Most of it sits under £35 individually, and our Home Office Essentials range is exactly this shortlist in one place, with free UK shipping when you buy two or more items together. If budget is the main constraint, our Under £20 collection covers the cheapest, highest-impact pieces first — see our best desk upgrades under £20 roundup for our specific picks.

What we'd skip, at least at first

Standing desk converters, elaborate monitor arms, and full ergonomic chairs are all genuinely useful, but they're expensive and solve problems most people haven't hit yet. Start with the essentials above, live with the setup for a few weeks, and buy further equipment only once you know exactly what's still bothering you.