120+ UK Office Space Statistics 2025: The Market Report

1. Why office space statistics matter in 2025

Real estate directors are under pressure to cut costs, upgrade quality and support hybrid working, all at the same time. In 2025, you cannot do that based on the 2018 rules of thumb. You need current office space statistics that reflect serviced, managed and leased models in the UK market.

This Stat-Stack pulls together recent data points from major advisers and researchers across vacancy, utilisation, desk rates, deal sizes, term lengths, incentives and flex growth. The focus is the UK office market, with London benchmarks alongside key regional cities, and flex models broken out where data allows.

At Flexioffices, we work across almost all of the UK serviced, managed and flex market, sitting alongside your leased portfolio to help you compare options in real time. That experience informs how we interpret and group these numbers for decision-makers, so you can move from headline statistics to practical scenarios quickly.

Who this report is for

This piece is written for real estate directors and CFOs planning 2025 to 2028 portfolio moves, HR and workplace leaders who need a clean benchmark pack for internal decks, and growth businesses stepping up from single offices into multi-city networks. If you are weighing a move from a leased office into serviced or managed space, the comparisons here sit neatly alongside the Flexioffices guide to serviced, managed and leased offices, which explains the structural differences between each route.

How the data was chosen and grouped

All figures are drawn from recent UK or London-specific reports, usually dated between late 2023 and late 2025. Where a statistic is global or European, it is clearly flagged. We prioritise office-specific research, London and UK city data, and sources with clear methodology from organisations such as CBRE, Savills, JLL, Instant, Re-Leased and others.

Where we could not find robust UK-specific numbers, for example, precise subletting volumes, we explain the gap rather than guess. In practice, most real estate teams will use these benchmarks as starting points, then overlay live pricing and incentives from advisors and from platforms like Flexioffices.

Key takeaways

• UK flex offices are about 10% of London's inventory.
• Flex workspace occupancy averages 80%, outpacing leased offices.
• The average UK office lease length is now 3.7 years.
• London flex desk rates range from £514 to £576 per person monthly.
• Central London rent-free periods remain close to two years on top deals.

2. Using this Stat-Stack for board papers and business cases

You can treat this page as a data menu. For each theme, from utilisation and vacancy to pricing, term length and incentives, we give narrative context, one or more tables with sourced numbers, and quick benchmarks that translate into simple rules or charts. Everything is built to be copy-paste ready for board decks and business cases.

To visualise the data, most tables can be turned into column charts for city-by-city comparisons, stacked bars for flex versus conventional splits, or line charts for trend series such as lease lengths or vacancy. When you move from reading to action, tools like the Flexioffices office space calculator can translate headcount and utilisation into concrete requirements by model.

Reading serviced vs managed vs leased comparisons

Throughout the Stat-Stack, we use "flex" as an umbrella term for offices with more flexible use and contracts. This includes both serviced offices, which are ready-to-use with services included, and managed offices, which offer custom space and branding for each client but remain on flexible terms. We highlight where term lengths, pricing, or fit-out models differ. Leased offices refer specifically to traditional, long-term leases where you take on repair and insurance responsibilities, including extended-stay pre-lets in new developments.

For each decision point, you can compare three options: a serviced office (a type of flex) with minimal capex and ready-to-use services, a managed solution (another form of flex) with more control and a longer-term view, or a conventional lease where you take both the risk and the reward of longer commitments and capital spend.

Quick ways to visualise these tables

For board communication, focus on simple visuals. A two-bar chart comparing average London and regional desk rates gets the point across faster than a lengthy appendix. A stacked bar chart comparing flex share of the portfolio to leased space makes the structural shift obvious in seconds. Use the tables as a source, then strip them back into the five or six numbers your stakeholders really need.

3. Utilisation, attendance & desks per employee

Hybrid working means leased space can look too empty on most weekdays, even though flex centres often feel busy. The gap between the old 80% utilisation myths and the current reality shows up clearly in the data, and it has significant implications for how many desks you actually need.

The British Council for Offices cut its long-standing workstation utilisation benchmark from 80% to 66% in recent guidance and found that average space per person rose from roughly 12.5 square metres pre-pandemic to about 15 square metres. Large hybrid portfolios tracked by workplace consultants show similar shifts, with fewer desks provided per employee and more intense use of those desks on peak days.

UK utilisation benchmarks in 2024 to 2025

AWA's Hybrid Working Index, which covers global and UK organisations, recorded an apparent change between 2022 and 2024. Weekly attendance as a share of staff in the office on an average day has crept up, but desk provision per headcount has fallen sharply, meaning people are using the remaining desks more intensively.

As a quick benchmark, planning density around 15 square metres per person and a sustainable workstation utilisation of 60% to 70% is now more realistic than an 80% target for most UK offices. Weekly in-office attendance for large portfolios often sits in the low 30% range, so the question is less whether your floor looks busy and more whether you are paying for too much low-use space.

For occupiers using serviced or managed offices sourced through Flexioffices UK-wide marketplace, this often translates into smaller footprints with higher day-to-day intensity, particularly on Tuesdays to Thursdays.

Office attendance by day of the week

Hybrid patterns are uneven across the week. AWA's data highlights a strong mid-week peak, with Mondays and Fridays remaining much quieter in many portfolios. Remit Consulting's UK occupancy index for multi-tenant offices shows the same pattern: average building occupancy climbs towards 40% on peak days, while remaining markedly lower on Fridays.

In early 2025, Remit Consulting reported average UK office building occupancy of just over 37%, with Monday hitting a series high as some employers added mandatory in-office days. For a real estate director, this is where flex models are powerful. You can size a serviced or managed office through Flexioffices London search.

Desks per 100 employees & right-sizing

The shift from 79 to 56 desks per 100 employees in the AWA sample suggests UK corporates have already cut physical provision by about 30% compared with 2022. If you still run close to one desk per employee in a leased office, you are probably over-provisioned relative to UK peers. In serviced or managed space, a starting point of 60 to 70 desks per 100 full-time equivalents, with extra meeting and collaboration areas, is now common for hybrid teams.

Many clients are trading raw desk numbers for better amenities and technology. The Flexioffices article on premium office trends shows how decision-makers are reallocating budgets from square footage to quality to support attraction and retention.

4. Occupancy, vacancy & quality split

Vacancy and utilisation are different angles on the same problem, too much secondary space in the wrong format and not enough prime, high-performing space. The gap between London and regional cities is evident in the numbers, with a marked split between Grade A and older stock.

Headline vacancy rates tell you how much space is technically available. Daily utilisation tells you how much of the space you pay for is actually in use. For most occupiers, the opportunity is to move out of low-quality or underused space and into better-located, higher-performing space, without increasing total cost.

UK & London vacancy snapshots to 2025

Cluttons' autumn 2024 UK office update put total UK office vacancy at 6.6% in Q2 2024, up from about 4% before the pandemic. Key regional cities and Greater London both sat at 9.9%, which was the highest London figure in two decades. By early 2025, other commentators reported London vacancy easing back towards the high 8% range as net absorption turned positive.

For central London, more granular snapshots come from Savills, Knight Frank and BNP Paribas Real Estate. These show vacancy peaking around 10% in 2024 before falling back towards the high 7% range in 2025.

As quick benchmarks, UK-wide vacancy is around 6.5% to 7%, up from roughly 4% pre-COVID. Greater London and major regional cities are closer to 9% to 10%, although prime sub-markets sit lower. The Central London vacancy rate has moved back under 8%, but remains above its long-term average by more than a whole percentage point.

Our guide to office space trends explains how occupiers are using this environment to trade out of older buildings and into better-quality floors without necessarily increasing their total outlay.

Flex space occupancy vs conventional

While daily utilisation in leased space hovers around the high 30% mark, analysis of UK flexible workspace shows consistently strong occupancy. Instant's research into flexible workspace occupancy reported that UK flex space averaged 80% occupancy, up from 79% in the prior year, with premium and amenity-rich centres performing even better.

Older Savills flex research put 2023 contract occupancy at 88% in London and 86% across the rest of the UK, underscoring how resilient the flex segment has been even in slower deal years. For directors, the signal is clear. Flex centres are being used much closer to capacity than most leased floors, which is driving operators and landlords to keep adding serviced and managed stock, much of it available through Flexioffices office space listings and advisory service.

Prime vs secondary space performance

Demand is focusing on prime and Grade A buildings. Savills' analysis of Greater London and the South East found that around 80% of take-up in 2023 and 2024 was for prime or Grade A space, yet only about 13% of supply fell into that category. Cushman & Wakefield's marketbeat for the big five regional cities and central London showed 64% of Q2 2023 take-up going into Grade A stock, well above the five-year average.

This mismatch explains why premium serviced and managed centres can report 80%+ occupancy while older leasehold floors sit half-empty. The best buildings in the best locations still attract and hold tenants, while older stock faces either significant repositioning or eventual obsolescence.

5. Deal sizes, take-up & flex supply growth

Deal sizes and take-up statistics show how differently occupiers use flex and conventional leases. At the same time, supply-side numbers reveal how quickly landlords are adding flexible options in response.

For corporate real estate teams, these figures provide practical context when deciding whether to commit to another traditional lease, explore a managed agreement, or use serviced offices as a bridge to a future location.

Conventional leasing deal sizes in London

On the leased side, landlord and agent data show fewer but larger corporate deals in London. Knight Frank's Q3 2024 London Office Market Report recorded that take-up rose by around 23% to roughly 3 million square feet, more than 10% above the same quarter in 2023. Just over half of leasing transactions by volume were for spaces above 40,000 square feet, which pushed the average deal size up by about 6% to 8,726 square feet.

Around half of those large deals were pre-lets, reflecting more substantial confidence in prime new builds. Regional cities show similar patterns. Savills' Manchester Q3 2024 snapshot quotes a prime rent of £44 per square foot, up from £43 in Q1 2024 and expected to reach £45. That growth has been driven by big pre-let deals such as ARM's 69,000-square-foot acquisition at No. 1 St Michael's.

Flex deal sizes & desk bands

Flex transactions are smaller in floor area but still meaningful in terms of headcount. CBRE's UK Flex Market Update, published in partnership with Orega, provides a detailed view of 2024 flex deals across London, Manchester and Birmingham. This research shows flex making up more than 10% of London's office market by floorspace, with smaller but growing shares in the key regional cities.

Across UK flex markets, the 1-25 desk band is the most active bracket. In London, more than 60% of CBRE's H1 2024 flex transactions were for requirements of 25 desks or more, and the average size of a flex deal in London between Q1 and Q3 2024 was 3,695 square feet.

For corporates, this shows that flex is no longer just a 10-desk project space. Entire floors of 100-plus desks are now delivered as managed or serviced space, often with the operator or landlord taking on design, fit-out, and facilities management risk.

Flex supply growth and share of the market

On the supply side, multiple reports point to rapid growth in flex stock in London and other big cities. Savills' flexible offices spotlight recorded UK flex enquiries up 12% year on year and more than 170% above pre-COVID levels, with London contract occupancy at 88% and regional contract occupancy at 86%.

The same report noted that 14 flex operators were seeking spaces larger than 20,000 square feet, with more than 90% seeking management agreements rather than pure leases. CBRE's flex market work identified around 750,000 square feet of net growth in the London flex market in 2023, while Financial Times coverage suggested that flex now makes up about 10% of London's office market by floorspace, up from around 6% in 2019.

Data from Rubberdesk, summarised for the London market, shows that central London flexible inventory rose 29% to 4.3 million square feet. In comparison, total available flexible inventory across London rose 19% to 5.8 million square feet. Enterprise-grade offices of 50 desks or more saw desk rates rise 12% to £819 per desk, while smaller offices saw rates fall around 3% to £560-£660 per desk, reflecting stronger demand for larger managed solutions.

6. Term lengths: serviced, managed & leased

Term length is one of the sharpest contrasts between serviced, managed and leased models, and the data has shifted in the past two years. Flex commitments are lengthening slightly, while traditional lease terms have moved back up after a period of shorter deals.

For occupiers, the key decision is how much risk to take on in terms of headcount and location. Shorter terms offer agility but can be more expensive per desk. Longer terms can deliver better net effective costs, but reduce your ability to change course.

Serviced office licence terms

CBRE's occupier guide to flexible office space describes typical serviced offices as private space within a centre, on flexible terms of 6 to 12 months, priced per desk per month. Headcounts usually range from 5 to 100 people, and services such as reception and cleaning are bundled into the fee.

Workthere, Savills' flex brokerage, notes that serviced office contracts usually range from 3 to 24 months, with an average term of around 12 months, and suites typically range from 1 to 200 desks. In our live deals at Flexioffices serviced office listings, most mid-market customers still sign for 12 months and then roll or expand once the location proves itself.

Managed office commitments & flex agreements

The same CBRE guidance sets out managed offices as spaces chosen by the occupier and fully outsourced to a third-party operator. The provider takes the lease, handles fit-out and facilities management, and wraps costs into a single monthly fee. These spaces are often 40 desks or more and typically require commitments of 18 months or longer.

CBRE's separate research on flex agreement lengths in London found that the average flex office agreement has reached 22 months, the longest since they started tracking in 2020. That figure covers a mix of serviced, managed, and enterprise suites and suggests that occupiers are comfortable trading some flexibility for better pricing and more operator investment in fit-out.

Conventional lease terms & the shift to 3 to 5 years

Re-Leased's UK State of Commercial Real Estate Leasing report for Q1 2024 offers a detailed view of how office lease terms are changing. The average office lease length increased by 27%, from 2.9 years in Q1 2023 to 3.7 years in Q1 2024. Leases of three to five years grew by 69% year on year, while leases of five to ten years increased by 28%.

At the same time, very short leases shrank. Deals of 12 months or less fell by 19%, and one to three-year leases fell by 15%. Long leases of ten years or more more than doubled compared with Q1 2023, albeit from a small base. Together, this suggests that the emergency short-term commitments signed in the immediate post-COVID years are giving way to more confident medium-term obligations.

As short-term length benchmarks, serviced space typically runs on 12-month commitments with easy expansion, managed office deals commonly run for 18 to 36 months, and London flex agreements average around 22 months. Leasehold commitments increasingly sit in the three to five-year range rather than the ultra-short one or two-year deals seen in 2021 and 2022. If you are unsure which pattern suits your headcount and risk, the Flexioffices overview of office types walks through the trade-offs with practical examples.

7. Desk rates & rent levels: London vs UK regions

Desk rates are the easiest way to compare serviced and managed offices with each other and with headline rents on leased space. The key is to compare like with like: per-person monthly costs for flex versus net-effective per-person costs for leases.

In 2025, London remains the most expensive city in the UK for flexible desks, but several regional cities are catching up as they attract more tech and professional services growth. At the same time, high fit-out costs and rising prime rents have pushed up the effective cost of new leasehold space.

Flexible desk rates in key UK cities

Instant Offices' 2024 analysis of flexible office costs across the UK provides a clean benchmark of average cost per person per desk in top cities. London sits at the top of the table, with significant regional hubs such as Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh clustered in the £370-£460 range.

The same analysis notes that the average transacted desk rate in London is £514 per month as of January 2024, an 8.8% increase on the previous year, with premium spaces in some districts reaching roughly £1,170 per desk per month. The Flexioffices guide to office costs in UK cities updates these ranges with live deal data segmented by office type and city.

London flex pricing by size & quality

CBRE's flex market work and Rubberdesk's London reports show how pricing in London varies by office size and quality. Smaller suites tend to be cheaper per desk than large, enterprise-grade managed spaces, but demand for bigger, high-quality floors has pushed those rates up faster.

The same sources highlight that central London's flexible inventory has grown 29% to 4.3 million square feet, while total available flex space across London is now 5.8 million square feet, up 19%. These supply numbers matter because they help explain why price growth has been strongest at the premium end, where demand still outstrips supply.

Managed vs private vs sublet pricing

Office Hub's 2024 UK flexible office market report breaks pricing out by product type across the UK. Managed offices sit at the top of the pricing stack, followed by enterprise suites, with sublet and traditional private offices priced lower on average.

On the leasehold side, Savills' Central London Office Market Watch put the average City prime rent at £98.60 per square foot at the end of 2024, 7.5% higher than 2023 levels. For City and West End occupiers weighing premium flex against a new lease, those rent levels plus fit-out costs are key inputs. The Flexioffices set of UK area reports provides more granular desk-rate and building-count data by sub-market to support that comparison.

8. Fit out costs: capex vs opex under each model

Fit-out has quietly become one of the biggest drivers of office strategy. High construction inflation, ESG requirements and complex technology have made do-it-yourself fit-out more expensive and slower. Serviced and managed models can shift that risk and spend away from your balance sheet.

On a traditional lease, you usually fund Cat B works and any additional enhancements. In a serviced or managed office, much of that spend is already embedded in the building and is spread across your monthly licence or management fee.

London fit-out costs range from 2024 to 2025

Knight Frank's occupier fit-out cost guides and contractor estimates give broad ranges for London. A review by Pilcher London suggests that office fit-out costs typically range from £50 to £200 per square foot, depending on specification, location and complexity.

Global fit-out reports from Turner & Townsend and others place London at the very top of global high-spec fit-out costs, with Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh also among the most expensive cities for building new office space. For many occupiers, that makes the capital cost of a conventional lease hard to justify for all but the most stable, long-term requirements.

Cat A vs Cat B vs flex turnkey

In a traditional lease model, you face three main buckets. Landlords generally deliver Cat A works to provide a basic finished shell. Occupiers then fund Cat B works to create a branded, functional office. Over the life of the lease, additional churn costs follow as you reconfigure.

In serviced or managed space, operators or landlord partners fund Cat B and spread the cost across licences and managed agreements. You avoid the upfront capex shock and the risk that the fit-out will be stranded if your headcount changes. CBRE's flex guidance highlights this plug-and-play value, where infrastructure, furniture, business rates, service charge and utilities are bundled into a single monthly payment.

The Flexioffices explainer on flexible office leasing shows how we structure managed agreements so you can treat fit-out as operating expenditure rather than capital expenditure.

9. Incentives, rent-free periods & net effective costs

Headline rent is only half the story in a lease. In a high-vacancy market, rent-free months and landlord capital contributions can materially reduce the effective cost. Understanding both is essential when comparing leasehold space with all-inclusive serviced and managed options.

Incentives have to balance longer fit-out periods, sustainability requirements, and the relative bargaining power of the landlord and occupier. In real terms, fit-out periods have lengthened, and some occupiers are negotiating additional packages to offset those costs.

Central London rent-free benchmarks

Savills' spotlight on the central London office market found that, despite lengthening fit-out periods, rent-free incentives in 2023 remained broadly stable, at around 23 months in the West End and 24 months in the City on 10-year leases. These incentives sit on top of headline rents that have continued to rise.

At the same time, Savills recorded City prime headline rent close to £98.60 per square foot at the end of 2024, 7.5% up on 2023. A Carter Jonas net effective rents monitor for Q1 2024 shows how those incentives and rent-free months alter actual occupational cost across City sub-markets, sometimes bringing net effective rents down materially compared with headline figures.

For flex deals, incentives tend to be simpler. Serviced operators sometimes offer a few free weeks or discounts on more extended licences rather than long rent-free periods. Managed deals may include landlord contributions or stepped rents wrapped into the all-inclusive fee, especially when the term length is closer to 3 years, and the fit-out spend is significant.

10. Subletting, regears & renewal trends

Subletting volumes are harder to measure cleanly across the UK, but we have strong signals on regears and on the shift from leases into flex. Together, they point to a market in which occupiers are taking a more strategic, data-driven approach to location decisions.

For many businesses, the choice is no longer to stay or leave at lease expiry. The decision now includes options such as partial exits, flexible replacement space, or dividing headcount between a smaller HQ and a network of regional hubs.

Longer leases and re-gears in 2024

As already noted, Re-Leased's data shows a clear move away from ultra-short leases towards three- to five-year terms and beyond, with average office lease length rising from 2.9 to 3.7 years and significant growth in five- to ten-year and ten-year-plus leases. This suggests that more occupiers are deciding to commit properly to locations where they believe.

Savills' Central London Office Market Watch for Q4 2024 adds another angle. Around 4.5 million square feet of active demand came from occupiers who had been in their existing premises for at least 15 years, and rising fit-out costs are expected to push many towards renewal or re-gear rather than relocation in 2025. In other words, reusing good space can be more cost-effective than moving, even if the new building looks more attractive on paper.

Flex as an alternative to subletting

Where occupiers have excess space, they now have three main options. They can re-gear and right-size with landlord support, sublet surplus leased space where the lease allows, or exit at break or expiry and reoccupy via serviced or managed offices.

CBRE research on office occupier sentiment suggests that a growing share of occupiers expect 11%-50% of their portfolios to be flex in the next two years, compared with a much smaller flex share today. That implies that flex will increasingly be used instead of re-gear leases or sublets, especially where headcount is volatile.

Flexioffices enterprise clients, as described in the article on why enterprises are pivoting to flex space, often use flex centres to absorb headcount growth or to host project teams. At the same time, they unwind or regear long leases elsewhere in the portfolio.

What we can and cannot measure on sublets

There is no single, current UK-wide statistic that cleanly shows sublet space as a share of total office availability. Individual marketbeat reports sometimes quote sublet proportions for specific quarters, but these figures vary and are not always comparable between sources or markets.

For this reason, we have not included a headline sublet as a percentage of stock number here. Instead, we recommend treating subletting as part of a broader scenario analysis. If you plan to sublet, do the numbers against a move into serviced or managed space first. If your surplus is temporary, short-term flex may beat the risk and friction of finding and managing a subtenant.

11. Quick benchmark cheat sheets for decision makers

This section pulls everything together into a set of simple comparison tables and ratios you can drop straight into slides. The idea is to give you fast, defensible numbers that help you steer conversations with boards and executive teams.

Use these benchmarks as guardrails rather than rigid rules. Your own utilisation, lease profile and team preferences will vary, but if you are far away from these numbers, it is a signal to review your strategy.

Flex vs lease quick comparisons (2025 UK lens)

Sources referenced here include Instant Offices, CBRE, Re-Leased, Pilcher London and Savills, as detailed in earlier sections. The goal is not to claim that one model is always cheaper than another, but to show the structural differences in cost, risk and flexibility.

Five ratios to test your portfolio

For a quick health check, five data-driven ratios work well. They are simple to calculate and easy to explain.

First, desks per 100 employees. The AWA data shows a benchmark of around 56 desks per 100 employees in hybrid portfolios, down from close to 80 in 2022. If you are still at or near one desk per person, you may be over-provisioned.

Second, the average weekly in-office attendance. Hybrid portfolios commonly sit in the low 30% range for leased floors, whereas flex centres often run at 80%+ occupancy. Significant gaps here can highlight an opportunity to shift from owned desks to shared, more intensively used flex space.

Third, lease term profile. Re-Leased's work suggests an average term of around 3.7 years, with strong growth in three to five-year deals. If you still have a large number of very long leases with no breaks, your portfolio may be less agile than your peers'.

Fourth, flex share of the portfolio. Many occupiers expect 11%-50% of their space to be flex within the next two years. If you are still at zero flex exposure, you may be missing an essential tool for handling change.

Fifth, vacancy versus prime exposure. National office vacancy is around 6.6%, with London and big cities closer to 9% to 10%, but prime Grade A space remains in short supply. If much of your space is secondary, you may need to consider trading some quantity for quality. The Flexioffices guide to building a multi-city UK office network sets out one route to rebalance.

12. How Flexioffices can help you apply this data

Flexioffices sits across serviced, managed and flexible workspace in London and across the UK, giving you live access to pricing, availability and incentives alongside your existing leases. Our leading site explains how we cover almost the entire UK flex market with a free, advisory-led service, so you can see what is really available for your brief.

Whether you want to re-gear leases, exit older stock in stages or add regional hubs, our team can translate the benchmarks in this Stat-Stack into specific options and negotiating positions. The aim is simple: help you design a portfolio that matches your utilisation, risk profile and culture, rather than yesterday's assumptions. You can explore different space types and locations in the Flexioffices office search and then speak with our consultants for tailored advice.

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