Exclusive Study – Who owns the coworking industry in Europe?

This 2021 market report examined the structure and ownership of Europe’s coworking and flexible-workspace industry using SocialWorkplaces.com’s market database and contacts with industry participants. It treated operators with at least four locations as coworking chains and generally used location counts as a proxy for market share and operator size. The report compared the presence of international chains, national chains and smaller independent operators across selected European countries. It identified the United Kingdom as the continent’s most mature market by its chosen measures, while describing the wider European industry as fragmented and predominantly local outside IWG’s network. The analysis also compared chain locations with national population sizes and discussed differences in market maturity, consolidation and international expansion. Its ownership section classified funding sources as financial investors, synergy investors, unrelated industry groups, nonprofit or public investors, and founders. It then compared investor profiles across national markets, including the role of private equity, venture capital and commercial real estate groups. The report found substantial variation between countries in both market structure and access to institutional investment, with the United Kingdom recording the highest stated penetration of financial investors among local flexible-workspace brands.

Key findings

• In 2021, the UK had almost 50 coworking chains, while operators with fewer than four locations accounted for 17% of locations.
• Independent operators represented 49% of France’s flexible-workspace offering in the 2021 analysis.
• IWG accounted for as much as 40% of the flexible-workspace market in some countries, while its share in Sweden was 12%.
• Financial investors partly or fully funded 26.83% of UK-based flexible-workspace brands in the 2021 report.

Published by Social Workplaces, 2021