Most teams in London are still paying for a 2019 style office while working in a 2025 reality. Rows of assigned desks sit empty most of the week, yet people still complain they cannot find a quiet booth or a space to focus.
The real question is no longer how many people you employ. It is how many actually use the space and what they do when they are there.
How much office space per employee is right?
Why is one desk per person now a bad deal? The one person one desk rule came from a world where everyone was in five days a week. In hybrid teams, that model simply burns cash. In an AI-driven, post-COVID world, where hiring plans for the future are constantly tested, getting the right amount of workspace for your growing business is imperative.
CBRE researchers report average space per employee has already dropped 27% since 2021 – from 292 to 205 square feet – yet many layouts – and more critically, decision makers in businesses – have not caught up.
Desk sharing ratios are everything. Simply cramming in more desks or paying for assumed growth at current rates, is not the answer. Gensler’s 2025 Global Workplace Survey team found only 26% of employees say their current office helps them do their best work, even though most are back over half the week.
In a fast-changing corporate environment, it’s your office itself that should be questioned every quarter.
So, what are the warning signs your office is mis-sized?
- Whole banks of desks are empty outside Tuesday to Thursday
- Meeting rooms and focus spaces are always full even when many desks are free
- Your policy expects two or three office days yet the lease still fits everyone at once
- You pay for large private offices that sit unused while staff hunt for quiet corners
Where workplaces feel great, the payoff is huge. People in high quality offices are nearly three times more likely to stay with their employer.
The smart move is to trade surplus desks for better spaces like project rooms, phone booths, and relaxed work lounges that make the commute feel worth it. That shift starts by looking at your true peak attendance then rebuilding your space around real utilisation rather than total headcount.
How much office space do I need?
It’s time to get smart on real maths when it comes to desks and people. It’s wasteful to wing it in the current hybrid workspace era.
Start with your busiest days not your total payroll. If 60 people from a 100 person team usually come in Tuesday to Thursday, you do not need 100 desks. You need settings for about 60 people to work well. That means a mix of workstations, meeting rooms, focus booths, and informal areas rather than a desk for everyone.
Companies are quietly sharing far more desks to make this work. CBRE’s 2025 data shows 62% of organisations now run desk sharing ratios above 1.5 employees per desk, and only 14% keep a traditional 1 to 1 setup. OfficeRnD analysts and Flexos experts point to a 1 to 2 ratio as a practical sweet spot for most hybrid teams.
Flexos reports that this ratio delivers close to 90% desk use on the busy midweek days and around 50% on Mondays and Fridays. In a disrupted AI-impacted market, that difference in utilisation translates directly into rent saved.
The catch is that this only works if desks are no longer the main feature.
Gensler found that time spent working with others is rising while solo desk work is falling. The most effective offices now devote roughly 40% of space to individual workstations and the rest to varied shared environments.
Researchers highlight four essential types of space:
- Areas for creative group work
- Quiet rooms for focus
- Settings to reflect and reset
- Places to refresh such as work cafes or terraces
Companies that hit very high desk use on busy days have one thing in common: they design for these work modes rather than for job titles or seniority.
How do you turn a smaller office into better hybrid workspace?
To move from theory to savings, you need to track how your people actually use the office, then invest the freed up square footage into better quality, hybrid working spaces that will keep them coming back.
Cutting square footage only works if you start with facts. Use door-entry data, desk booking tools, or simple head counts over a few weeks to learn who comes in when and how long they stay and keep track of how it changes month on month. That evidence should set your desk numbers and meeting room mix, not gut feel or last year’s come-to-work policy.
From there, the office-right sizing winners follow three clear steps:
- Measure real use: Track daily arrivals by team and by time of day. Note when seats, booths, and rooms hit pressure points. This stops you signing for space that sits empty or leaves people hunting for somewhere to work.
- Reinvest savings into experience: Gensler’s research shows people with high choice over where and how they work are about two and a half times more likely to say their office supports great performance. Spend your rent savings on focus rooms, reliable video spaces, warm lighting, and good coffee.
- Keep a flex buffer: Aim for roughly 10 to 20% headroom in your layout, then use managed or serviced space for project spikes. Flexible terms are now a leading reason companies lean on coworking rather than long leases.
Get these three moves right and you are ready to treat your office choice as a strategic decision that sets up the final big call on how much space to commit to.
How ADAPT turns hybrid chaos into a right-sized office
Most London teams now know their office is wrong – too many empty desks, not enough rooms to think or meet – but don’t know what to move to next. ADAPT takes that confusion and turns it into a clear brief, then into a flexible office that matches how your team actually works, not how it used to work.
Instead of starting with “How many people are on payroll?”, ADAPT starts with “Who really comes in, when, and what do they need to do?”.
We help you look at your busiest days, then find spaces built for a smarter mix of desks, meeting rooms, focus booths, and social areas. From compact private offices for 5-20 people to more bespoke floors for bigger teams, we match you with options that trade spare desks for better quality space.
Because we work across London’s flex and managed office market every day, we can surface hidden, off-market choices and operators you won’t find on the big portals. ADAPT then helps you sense-check layouts, keep a sensible “flex buffer” for growth, and avoid locking into a 2019-style lease that does not fit a 2025 hybrid pattern.
The result: clients typically move into smaller, better-designed offices that feel busier on peak days, cost less overall, and actually make people want to come in. With 20+ years in the market, ADAPT has seen the shift from rows of desks to human-first workplaces up close – and we build that learning into every search.
Most teams don’t need more space; they need the right space used in the right way. Our job is to turn real attendance patterns into an amazing flexible office workspace that feels full of energy, not full of empty desks.
Chris Meredith, ADAPT CEO & Founder
What can you do to get ahead of your office space decision?
If your team has gone hybrid, if your headcount has shifted, or if you’re stuck in a legacy lease that still assumes one desk per person, now is the time to rethink your space. A right-sized, flexible office around won’t just save money – it will give your team better places to focus, meet, and collaborate.
If you’re weighing your next move, you can connect with ADAPT for expert, no-cost guidance on what a right-sized office could look like.
