How much office space do I need?

Working out how much office space you need in a serviced office is very straightforward. Simply work out how many desks you need for your teams. This may need a little more thought if you offer flexible or hybrid working. For example, let’s say you’re a startup. Your business is expanding but your team works on average 2 days of the week at home. This can get a little confusing.

One of the advantages of serviced offices is that most encourage scaling up or down as your business plan needs.

Most operators allow 50ft² per person for desk space but dedicate 50% of the overall building space to communal and shared facilities such as breakout spaces and meeting rooms.

If you need private meeting rooms within your own space, this can be slightly more complicated and you should speak to an advisor to size your space correctly. You'll normally have to pay for extra 'desks' to be taken up with meeting space. Remember in most serviced offices you'll still have the communal areas too, which normally include breakout space, phone booths and meeting rooms.

Calculating the amount of office space you need in a traditional office is slightly more complicated than with serviced offices. Unlike serviced offices, traditional leased office space and managed office spaces are measured and calculated in square feet rather than the number of desks.

The other main difference between the two is that, with a serviced office, your office provider will have pre-configured the space for you and most amenities are communal (they sit outside of the private office work area). So all you need to do is work out how many desks you need and voilà - you have your answer.

In a traditional office, on the other hand, it's up to you to configure the space to best suit your business needs. This means taking into account factors such as:

• The type of work your employees will be doing - are they desk-based or do they need room to move around?
• Quite working or collaborative - do they need places to gather in project areas, meeting spaces or meeting rooms?
• The team dynamics - do you need private offices or will an open-plan layout suffice?
• Your office equipment - do you have a lot of large items such as printers or filing cabinets that will take up space?

Most UK buildings are designed to a standard office density of 1:10m² - meaning for every 10m² of office space, there should be one person. This translates to roughly 100ft² per person. This is just a general guide, however, and you may need more or less depending on the factors mentioned above.

Managed offices are largely similar to the rule of thumb of leased offices as all of the facilities you need for your business are included within the four walls of your office space.

The simple answer to this question is cost.  The amount of office space you take will have a direct impact on your overheads and costs.

It's also worth considering that taking too little office space can have a negative impact on employee morale and productivity. If your team feels cramped and uncomfortable, this can lead to high staff turnover and a dip in motivation levels.

On the flip side, taking too much office space can be a waste of money and resources. If you're paying for office space that you're not using, this is money

There are other considerations surrounding the sustainability and efficiency of the workspace. Whilst it’s important to not take too little space, you should also be careful not to take too much. You should consider the current company headcount, growth plans, expansion and exactly what you need.

Office space efficiency is more important now than ever. Businesses are looking for office space that is both cost-effective and makes the most of the available space. It's critical that you plan your office space correctly before you commit to your license agreement or lease.

Estimating that your business needs 2,000ft² is the easy part. Getting the most out of that space is more difficult.

There are many questions that need to be answered -

• How many people need fixed workstations?
• What other types of collaboration areas do we need
• How much open space do we need
• Do people need individual offices?
• If so, how many private offices do we need?
• Do we need storage space?
• Do we need a reception area?
• Do we need some private space?
• How many meeting rooms do we need?
• How big do these meeting spaces need to be?

All of these questions will have a direct impact on the amount of space

Our team of experts and external partners can help you work through these questions to better understand your office space requirements. We’ll challenge (in a good way) what and how much space you think you need. We’ll endeavour to find out the pain points your business currently feels in your existing office and try and resolve them in your new office space.

We’ll help you take a data-driven approach and can look at occupancy levels, meeting room occupancy and even carry out staff surveys if that’s what’s needed.

We’ll take your office space calculation estimate and try and put it down on paper.

With our amazing team of external partners, we can help you visualise what your office layout looks like in 2D by space planning.

Remember 2,000 square feet in a beautiful square and open office space will work completely differently from 2,000 square feet of ‘quirky’, less orthodox space.

Once we’ve identified a couple of office spaces we can help you space plan each individual space and see what works for your business.

Contact us today to help you determine how much space you need, search the market for the perfect property and help you build out an efficient and beautiful office space for your employees.

You can find our office space calculator here.