Office landlords in the UK are turning to flexible or coworking spaces when converting existing offices into new types of real estate, new research by infinitSpace has revealed.
It revealed that repurposing traditional office space into flexible or coworking space was the most popular type of conversion (11%), ahead of hospitality (10%), retail outlets (8%), and residential property (7%).
This comes as a quarter (23%) of landlords have converted their traditional office space into flexible or coworking spaces over the past two years, and one-in-five (22%) plan to do the same in the coming two years.
When questioned about their greatest motivations for converting into a flexible workspace, over half (57%) of landlords said that aligning with current market trends was the most popular answer.
This was followed by keeping pace with competitors (54%), enhancing the value of their property (43%), maximising revenue from empty or underutilised space (40%), and futureproofing assets (35%).
Wybo Wijnbergen, CEO of infinitSpace, said: “If it wasn’t already clear, these results show that the traditional office model has and will continue to evolve rapidly. As many traditional office spaces face low occupancy rates, it has never been more important for office landlords to adapt.
“So, it’s positive to see that most landlords recognise the importance of upgrading their portfolio to keep pace with the rapidly evolving demands of UK office workers – as well as of of course boosting revenues and property values. For many, that looks like converting into flex space.”