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Suburban towns in the south of England are seeing a huge increase in demand for flexible workspace, the upsurge being particularly strong for locations on key transport corridors in and out of central London.
According to research by The Instant Group, Uxbridge has seen an 88% increase in demand, Slough a 42% rise and Romford 37%.
However, Oxford, Leicester and Southampton have also experienced a 36%, 25% and 15% increase in demand, respectively, showing growing levels of flexible office space further from the capital.
The research shows that while demand for flexible workspace in London remains strong, it now represents a smaller proportion of the overall market as workers have chosen to stay closer to their homes in the suburbs and smaller towns and cities.
Instant forecasts that the UK’s flexible workspace market will continue to grow with 60% of landlords expecting over 30% of their portfolio to offer flex products by 2030. At the same time, 80% of existing flex operators expect to increase their portfolio by 2026.
According to Michael Porter, group managing director of Style, the UK’s leading moveable wall specialists, this trend is reflected in an equally rapid growth in demand for flexible room space.
“This growing trend for flexible workspaces has a natural knock-on effect for moveable, folding and sliding walls.
“Demand has soared in the corporate sector in recent years as office space needs to be far more adaptable than ever before.
“Requirements now change daily for how rooms are used, from collaborative workspaces, through to adaptable meeting rooms.
“However, although this report focuses on the south of England, we are certainly not seeing it limited to that area. Areas such as the Midlands, North West, North East and Scotland have seen incredible levels of demand for moveable, folding and sliding walls as offices of all sizes seek to optimise their use of space and adapt to increasingly flexible working demands.”
In its report, Instant’s executive director John Duckworth said, “Demand for flexible workspace has grown over the last five years and continues to mature to reflect the greater adoption of hybrid and more flexible ways of working and changing occupier demands.
“In the early months of the pandemic, as working patterns continued to be disrupted, there were a lot of discussions around hub and spoke office strategies and whether there would be a rise in flex workspaces outside of core city centres.
“What we are increasingly seeing in the UK market is the opportunity for people to work their city job from their local community. The record demand we have seen for flex workspace in smaller cities, towns and in the suburbs is illustrative of this growing trend.”
For more information, please contact your nearest regional Style office
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HBN 00-09 sets out these surface characteristics because unsealed joints are a recognised place for moisture and micro-organisms to collect. A genuinely joint-free edge is designed to address that specific detail.
This is a surface and edge specification, not a clinical claim. Zero-joint technology has not been evaluated or certified by NHS England, and does not claim to reduce infection rates.
Food-service and guest-facing areas are typically inspected under hygiene and housekeeping standards that look closely at surfaces and joints. A seamless, moisture-resistant edge is designed with exactly that kind of scrutiny in mind.
Every one of these sectors shares the same underlying surface problem: a bonded-strip edge is a seam, and a seam is a place where dirt, moisture or wear can concentrate in a way a continuous surface can't. Zero-joint technology addresses that one structural detail across offices, schools, healthcare and hospitality settings alike — one construction detail, one shared weak point removed, four sectors that each care about it for their own reasons.
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