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Coworking Has Grown Up: Why Companies Now Want Private Offices Instead of Flex Desks

8. June 2026

Coworking started as a solution for freelancers and small start-ups. Open floors, shared desks, community. Two decades later, the picture has flipped. Established companies and teams now make up the bulk of demand. And they are not looking for a flex desk in an open-plan room. They want lockable, private offices.

From Single Seat to Company Location

In the early years, the flex desk was the industry's calling card: a seat on demand, bookable by the hour or the day. The model still works for individuals. For companies, it no longer does. Demand for private offices has overtaken the open model. By 2025, an average of around 80 percent of coworking space is allocated to private, enclosed offices, with only about 20 percent given over to open seating. What was originally conceived as open space has become a cluster of many small offices.

The reason is measurable. Open areas often have patchy utilization, while private and semi-private offices see much stronger and more consistent uptake. Companies placing teams are not paying for an atmosphere. They are paying for predictable productivity.

What Companies Actually Need

A team needs something different from a solo operator. Confidentiality in conversations and data. Focus without constant background noise. A space that carries the company's brand rather than feeling generic. The ability to bring people together reliably in one place. The private office delivers exactly that, without the commitment of a conventional lease.

Coworking has become part of the location strategy, no longer the stopgap. A company uses its headquarters for leadership and brand presence, flexible offices for distributed or regional teams, and meeting rooms for periodic collaboration. This mix gives control over cost and utilization, and gives employees more choice.

The Swiss Market: Zurich Leads

In the Swiss market, the shift is only at the start of its potential. The current market share of flexible office space sits at around one percent, and providers expect growth to 6 to 10 percent of the total office market over the coming years. Between 2019 and 2024, flexible space tripled in Zurich, Basel, Geneva and Zug, with only Zurich showing constant growth.

What matters is who drives that demand. The main demand comes from companies with 2 to 15 workplaces, and classic, lockable offices are the most popular. That is precisely the profile HeadsQuarter serves. The open flex desk is not the product being sought here.

The Sales Case

For decision-makers, it is not just the space that counts but the model behind it. A private office on a flexible agreement combines three advantages a conventional lease cannot offer at once: short terms, the ability to scale up and down, and predictable all-in costs including fit-out, reception and infrastructure. Companies that grow add space. Companies that wind down a project hand it back. The ten-year commitment disappears.

There is a balance-sheet dimension to this as well. Under IFRS 16, a long-term lease creates a lease liability and a right-of-use asset on the balance sheet. Short-term and service-oriented flexible agreements can, depending on how they are structured, be treated as an expense rather than extending the balance sheet. For CFOs, that is a concrete argument, not just a matter of convenience.

Conclusion

Coworking has grown up. The shared desk for the freelancer has become a professional workspace solution for teams and companies. Demand has moved from the open seat to the private office because companies need confidentiality, focus and brand presence without locking themselves in for the long term. In Zurich, that trend meets a market with plenty of growth still ahead. Anyone offering flexible office solutions today is no longer selling a flex desk. They are selling a company location for as long as it is needed.