Suburban towns around the edges of London have seen a huge increase in demand for flexible workspace over the five years since the first pandemic “stay at home” orders.
The upsurge since 2019 has been particularly strong for locations on key transport corridors in and out of central London with Uxbridge seeing an 88% increase in demand, Slough a 42% rise and Romford a 37% uptick, according to new analysis.
The SuLatest research from flexible workspace marketplace The Instant Group, shows how demand has also grown in bigger cities further away from London
Oxford, Leicester and Southampton have experienced a 36%, 25% and 15% increase in demand, respectively, it found.
The research shows that while demand for flexible workspace in London remains strong, it now represents a smaller proportion of the overall market as workers have chosen to stay closer to their homes in the suburbs and smaller towns and cities.
Instant forecasts that the UK’s flexible workspace market will continue to grow with 60% of landlords expecting over 30% of their portfolio to offer flex products by 2030. At the same time, 80% of existing flex operators expect to increase their portfolio by 2026.
The size of the space businesses are taking in the UK has also increased by 22% on average between 2019 and 2024, suggesting that larger employers are taking managed or flexible workspace. In London and the transaction size has increased by 41%.
Instant’s executive director John Duckworth said: “Demand for flexible workspace has grown over the last five years and continues to mature to reflect the greater adoption of hybrid and more flexible ways of working and changing occupier demands.
“ In the early months of the pandemic, as working patterns continued to be disrupted, there were a lot of discussions around hub and spoke office strategies and whether there would be a rise in flex workspaces outside of core city centres.
“What we are increasingly seeing in the UK market is the opportunity for people to work their city job from their local community. The record demand we have seen for flex workspace in smaller cities, towns and in the suburbs is illustrative of this growing trend.
“The office market is going to continue to evolve and adapt to meet demand over the duration of 2025 – and as flexible working permeates beyond larger cities, consumers will see even more choice than ever before.”
