That’s no exaggeration. These days I get an invite to the launch of a new co-working space roughly every week. Last week co-working space Interchange launched its third office building in Camden, adding 600 more desks to a combined total of 84,000 sq ft of office space. The previous week it was news that US workspace group RocketSpace will open its first workspace outside of San Francisco (where its alumni include Uber and Spotify) with a new London workspace in Angel with room for 1,500 members. The flip side of the flexibility that co-working spaces like WeWork and TechHub provide is that they are priced per desk and often at a rate far higher than a traditional office would cost, think £400 or £500 a month for a dedicated desk. According to a report from Cushman & Wakefield last year, London has 800 co-working spaces, three times as many as New York. And they’re growing at a rate of 10% per year. “Strict ‘co-working’ is contracting, but shared serviced offices are expanding and we’re seeing co-working [segments] with FinTech co-working spaces, retail co-working spaces, etc,” Juliette Morgan, partner at property services group Cushman & Wakefield, told The Memo. “There’s a lot of supply coming into the market, but occupancy rates are still quite buoyant.”
Small companies, individuals and larger businesses are increasingly opting for co-working spaces with short-term contracts over traditional property leasing. Nearly 1,000 co-working spaces are functioning in London, with demand increasing every week as employees from Santander, British Gas and Skyscanner progressively favour the flexible spaces. However, the number of businesses willing to adopt a co-working environment is expected to wane as prices per desk can reach up to £500 a month, while traditional office spaces can provide more long-term stability and lower rates.