Table of Contents
These are testing times for the coworking industry, and it is more important than ever to understand where the market is headed. Hence, we bring you the Global Coworking Study 2020 that explores the future of the coworking sector.
Overview
By 2024, the number of coworking spaces worldwide is estimated to cross 40,000. The commercial real estate industry will grow at a slower pace this year, but it’s going to rebound and develop even more rapidly post 2020 at a yearly growth rate of over 21%.
As per our field experts, approximately 5 million people will be working from coworking spaces by 2024.
Insights
Though the COVID-19 lockdown bought the growth of the coworking industry to a screeching halt, the overall outlook for 2021 seems extremely positive.
We even evaluated data from the 2019 Coworker Member’s Choice Awards. It showcases that before the coronavirus hit the world economy, 77% of the coworking operators planned to expand by opening new locations. Additionally, 32% of operators planned to open one new location by 2020, and 38% planned to open 2 to 3 new locations.
It seems that almost 9% of respondents said they plan to open 8+ new locations by the end of 2020. These projections show that many multi-location spaces are turning into small chains that serve entire regions.
Size & Capacity
The Coworker’s Coworking Size & Capacity Report, Asia is the continent with the highest average capacity of 114 people. Next in line is South America with the lowest average capacity of 54 people. China ranked as the country with the largest capacity, with 282 people on average per space (within Asia). In terms of space size though, the country with the largest spaces in the world is North America, with an average size of 9,799 sq.ft. per space. This number is followed by Asia at 8,101 sq. ft.
As more businesses implement flexible working practices, the capacity to continue to create extra time will become increasingly essential to space operators, as serviced offices and remote teams are being built.
Geography
With more than 3,700 workspaces across the world, America remains the biggest market. The second in position is India with 2,197 spaces, followed by United Kingdom with 1,044 spaces. When talking about annual growth in 2020, Germany and India are the two fastest-growing countries, followed by America and Canada.
Prices
The downward trend in prices is mirrored in various regions in the world as the coworking industry becomes mainstream. However, in Europe prices increased by almost 12% over the past 2 years.
When it comes to country rankings, Monaco stayed on the top spot in 2019- 2020 for most expensive monthly hot desk price at $397 per month. This was followed by Switzerland at $395 per month and Malta with $347 per month.
Post-COVID Predictions
We analyzed over 2,500 requests between February 2020 (pre-lockdowns) and May 2020 (post-lockdowns). It was observed that space utilization is beginning to recover and there’s a rising shift toward private offices, longer-term contract durations, and higher capacities of desks needed.
Preliminary data shows 76% higher share of requests for private offices compared to individual seats, 26% higher number of seats per request, and 96% higher contract terms.
In a post-COVID-19 world, demand is predicted to mainly come from larger organizations and enterprises that are looking to decentralize their workforces into smaller branch offices and private flex offices. That said, in the next couple of years, all offices will turn into flexible, on-demand spaces, which holds the potential for the coworking industry to grow and thrive.