Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
We’ve all seen them. Bearded hipsters playing table football in the street-level windows of co-working spaces. Or punky girls sprawled on beanbags poring over laptops. These slightly intimidating co-working spaces are sprouting on every high street.
Indeed, the market for flexible office space in Britain is growing at 13pc per annum, according to CBRE research.
London has cemented its position as the global leader for flexible workplaces, outstripping New York in terms of both space and number of venues. Since 2012, flexible workplace leasing has carved out a 10.6pc share of the market in London, compared with an average 2.9pc in Manhattan, according to estate agent Cushman & Wakefield.
In fact, expansion in London has been so fast that WeWork is the second-largest occupier of office space in the capital after the government.
As a trend, flexible working shows no sign of slowing down.
IWG, the world’s largest service office group, posted a double-digit rise in revenue in Q1 2019, with occupancy up 4.2pc.
Up to 30pc of office space could be flexible workspaces by 2030, according to JLL Research. up from 2pc today.
Chantal Robinson, operations director at co-working space LABS, says: “The way we work is changing. People