Between 2020 and 2025, the amount of managed office space in London grew by 582%. According to fresh research from JLL, the city’s managed stock expanded from 49,050 sq m to 334,000 sq m, nearly seven times what it was five years earlier. That makes managed offices the fastest-growing segment of London’s flexible workspace market, and a quiet but significant shift in how the capital’s buildings are being used.
It’s a useful story for anyone watching the office market, because it says something broader about what tenants now want, and what landlords are willing to try to keep their buildings full.
What’s a managed office, and why is it different?
A managed office sits between a traditional lease and a serviced office. The tenant gets a private, self-contained space, designed, fitted out and run by a third-party operator but with exclusive use of the facilities rather than sharing them with other companies. The whole thing comes under a single monthly fee covering fit-out, utilities and technology.
For occupiers, that means moving in without the upfront capital expenditure, long fit-out timelines or heavy dilapidation liabilities that come with a conventional lease. For landlords, the appeal is simpler: shorter sales cycles (JLL puts them as low as eight weeks from viewing to occupation), higher rental yields, and fewer empty months. In JLL’s survey, 64% of landlords pointed to void reduction as the main reason they’re engaging with managed space.
In other words, both sides get something they want, which is why the model is spreading.
The numbers behind the surge
Managed offices now account for 18% of London’s flex market, compared with 74% for serviced offices and 9% for landlord-operated flexible space. Serviced offices are still the biggest category, but managed is the one growing fastest, 582% over five years, against 223% for landlord-operated space and just 20% for serviced.
The flex sector as a whole now represents about 8.1% of London’s office stock, around 20 million sq ft up from roughly 15 million sq ft before the pandemic. CBRE’s Q1 2026 update echoes the same momentum, pointing to demand from tech, media, telecoms and AI firms, and a growing appetite for two-to-three-year flexible agreements. CoStar, meanwhile, reports that private office contract occupancy in London’s flex spaces hit 90% by the end of June 2026, the highest level in recent years.
Deal sizes are climbing too. Managed deals now make up 25% of all flexible workspace transactions, with an average of 6,600 sq ft versus 4,100 sq ft for serviced offices. Requirements above 6,000 sq ft grew 103% between 2020 and 2025 a sign that it’s not just solo founders and small teams signing up, but larger businesses looking for a proper base without committing to a decade-long lease.
Why it’s concentrating in certain neighbourhoods
Managed offices aren’t spreading evenly. JLL found higher concentrations in Midtown and the Tech Belt areas with strong demand and the rental values needed to support the model. They also tend to land in smaller, older buildings: more than three-quarters of managed offices are in properties under 10,000 sq ft, many of them originally built before the war.
That’s an interesting twist. The same stock that might otherwise sit empty or be awkward to let small floorplates, listed features, tight layouts is turning out to be a good fit for a managed product that can hit 90% space utilisation. Flex penetration in sub-10,000 sq ft buildings is still below 5%, compared with 14% in 25,000–50,000 sq ft buildings. For owners of smaller properties, that gap is less a problem than an opportunity.
What it means for the wider market
The London story is part of a bigger European shift. JLL notes similar patterns emerging in Paris, and both cities will be discussed in depth at the Coworking Europe 2026 conference in Paris this November.
The broader takeaway is that “flexible” no longer just means hotdesks and a coffee machine. It’s a maturing category with several products inside it serviced, managed and landlord-operated each serving a slightly different tenant. Managed offices, in particular, are turning the traditional trade-off between control and commitment on its head: you get a branded, private workplace without the baggage of a long lease.
For landlords sitting on void space, especially in older or smaller buildings, the message from London is fairly direct. The demand is there. The operators are there. The maths, at least in the cities where this has been tried, seems to work.
The bottom line
Five years of 582% growth doesn’t happen by accident. Managed offices have found a sweet spot between what occupiers want, flexibility, speed, a real workplace without the capital outlay and what landlords need: income, lower voids and a use for buildings that might otherwise struggle. Expect the trend to keep spreading, well beyond London.
