There is a persistent image of a coworking space as a sort of glorified serviced office for tech and creative startups who can’t afford the eye-watering rents in the areas they need to be. This is usually in the technology hothouses of the world’s major cities where they can work alongside the corporate giants and fellow innovators that thrive there. The reason such perceptions exist is because they are largely true. It’s no coincidence that coworking spaces have thrived up till now in the world’s most expensive property markets – in London, Hong Kong and New York, serving exactly the sorts of start-ups and freelancers who rely on proximity to their potential clients.
Coworking taking over the world
Although New York and London have been the epicentres of growth in coworking, the focus is shifting to other markets. WeWork expects that its biggest growth markets in 2018 will be in Hong King and China. by the end of the year, WeWork will be developing in several new locations in Hong Kong and expanding its existing presence in China to eight more cities: Shenzhen, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Xia Men, Cheng Du, Nan Jing, Xi’An and Wuhan. It also recently acquired Chinese coworking provider Naked Hub to signal its intentions for the country.
In the UK, demand for flexible workspace including coworking space soared across the country during 2017, according to a report from Cushman & Wakefield. It claims that WeWork is already the largest single corporate occupier of office space in London, with only the public sector exceeding its scale.
The increasing dominance of coworking space is not solely down to WeWork however, nor is it restricted to London. Across other UK cities, the take-up of space by coworking providers jumped to an average of 7.5 per cent of commercial property markets in 2017, up from 2 per cent in 2016. There seems to be no signs of a slowdown.
One of the most intriguing shifts in the provision of coworking space is the way it is serving a globalised customer base in some very exotic locations. It is a point raised in Ramon Suarez’s excellent book The Coworking Handbook in which he cites the examples of people who choose to work anywhere they choose, alongside like minded people in some of the world’s most beautiful locations.
These include such once unlikely work locations as Bali which has a thriving coworking and coliving scene from providers like Hubud (top) and Outpost. Or Morocco which offers similar facilities in the aptly named Sundesk facility. Or then again there’s Ski Locker in Chamonix for certain months of the year. For people in the right kind of work, there’s noting to stop them working in any of these spaces as they see fit.