How Much Office Space Do You Actually Need?
It’s the question every occupier asks at lease renewal, during a headcount review, or the moment someone in finance asks why half the desks are empty on a Tuesday.
Yet “how much space do we need?” rarely gets a straight answer, because the honest response is that it depends on how your team actually works, not simply how many people are on the payroll.
The old rule doesn’t work any more
For decades, the shorthand was simple: one desk per person, somewhere between 150 and 250 sq ft per head, and done. That figure came from a world where everyone was in the office five days a week. That world no longer exists.
For businesses with a strong office presence, around 100 sq ft per person is now often used as a starting point, split between desk space and communal areas such as meeting rooms, breakout zones and informal collaboration space. For teams with more mobile or hybrid working patterns, that figure can come down further.
A useful planning range for UK offices is typically between 5 and 15 square metres per person, depending on the layout, sector and density a team is comfortable with. As another starting point, businesses might allow one meeting room for every 8 to 12 employees and a breakout space for every 10 to 15. Meeting room demand has become one of the biggest pressure points as hybrid working has become more established.
Peak attendance, not headcount, is the real number
The consistent theme across current workplace planning is that the size of your office should be driven by how many people actually attend on your busiest day, not your total employee count.
Any reduction in space per employee must be balanced against the need for more meeting rooms, collaboration areas and quieter spaces that support hybrid working properly. Moving away from assigned desks doesn’t mean the office should simply shrink to match. It means the mix of space needs rethinking.
At Stoneway, this is a conversation we regularly have with growing businesses across London’s technology, finance and professional services sectors. A company that grows from 10 people to more than 70 doesn’t necessarily need a linear increase in floor space. It needs a smarter workplace strategy and a structure that allows the business to scale without overcommitting years in advance.
It’s a design problem as much as a numbers problem
The lines between flexible, managed and leased space have blurred considerably. Businesses now have more options for creating a workplace around their specific working style, priorities and growth plans.
It’s no longer just about how many square feet you need, but what kind of square feet: quiet, focus-friendly zones, informal collaboration areas and genuinely usable meeting rooms rather than rows of assigned desks that sit empty three days a week.
We regularly see teams that appear to have outgrown their office but don’t necessarily need more space. They may need a better configuration, a different mix of work settings or a more flexible structure that allows them to resize as the business evolves.
Increasingly, the conversation isn’t purely about square footage at all. It’s about how the workplace supports culture, reflects the brand and encourages the working patterns a business wants to establish, particularly in creative and fast-growing sectors where the office needs to do more than simply house desks.
How Much Office Space Should You Allow?
A sensible starting method is:
1. Start with peak day attendance, not total headcount. Use real data where possible, such as access records, booking systems or observed attendance patterns.
2. Apply a density benchmark appropriate to your sector. Highly collaborative, hybrid-first teams can often work comfortably at 75 to 125 sq ft per person. More traditional, five-day, client-facing or compliance-heavy teams may still need between 150 and 250 sq ft.
3. Build in the right mix of space, not just desks. Meeting rooms, focus areas, breakout space and informal collaboration zones may need to account for 30 to 40% of a well-designed modern office.
4.Add a sensible growth buffer. Allowing 10 to 20% headroom when signing a longer lease can help prevent the business from outgrowing the space before the term ends.
5. Test the requirement against flexibility. Consider whether the agreement or lease structure can adapt if your working patterns or headcount change significantly before renewal.
The bottom line
Overestimate and you’re paying rent on space nobody uses. Underestimate and you create a workplace people actively avoid which, in a world where the office must earn attendance rather than assume it, defeats the point of having one at all.
The right figure isn’t a single benchmark taken from a report. It’s a working requirement built around your actual attendance patterns, tested against your growth plans and shaped by advice that represents your interests rather than a landlord’s.
Not Sure How Much Space Your Business Needs?
Stoneway can help you turn your attendance data, working patterns and growth plans into a clear workplace brief—then find and negotiate the right space without overcommitting.
Talk to the Stoneway team about your office requirements.
