Cushman & Wakefield reports flex consolidation accelerating across EMEA

The UK has held its place as EMEA's most mature flexible office market for a second year running, scoring 94% in Cushman & Wakefield's Global Trends in Flexible Office 2026 report. But the more telling findings sit underneath the ranking: the big operators are taking a bigger share, landlords are stepping in to run space themselves, and AI has arrived as a demand driver in its own right.

France took second place at 92%. The Netherlands and the UAE posted the region's biggest year-on-year jumps, climbing to 82% and 77% respectively, and both were lifted by the same thing - the growing relationship between flexible workspace and artificial intelligence.

The index covers 16 EMEA markets, scoring each on everything from flexible stock and operator scale to landlord participation and leasing activity. Two AI-focused indicators join the list this year for the first time.

And the big operators are taking more of it. The share of markets where the three largest operators hold a medium or high concentration of activity has climbed from 70% to 93% in twelve months - high meaning those three control more than half the market, medium meaning 35 to 50%. Larger operators are better placed to win the well-connected, amenity-rich buildings everyone is chasing, and better able to absorb fit-out and operating costs that keep rising. Scale is doing what scale does.

Landlords are no longer content to be just the landlord, either. Two-thirds of EMEA markets now report meaningful management agreement activity, up from just over a third a year ago. C&W counts "high" as more than 20% of activity and "medium" as 5 to 20%, so this is real volume rather than the odd deal. Alongside that, 71% of markets report high levels of landlord-operated flexible workspace - more than three landlord-run offerings in a market - against 53% in 2025.

For Kiran Patel, Head of Office Sector Research BDS, EMEA at Cushman & Wakefield, it is the AI relationship that stands out: "The flexible office market across EMEA continues to mature and evolve. High-quality offerings, novel operating models and a structural supply shortage of traditional office space are all contributing to robust demand for flexible offices."

He goes on to say, "it's the relationship between flex and AI that's the most exciting part of the market, with the sector playing a critical role in supporting the scaling-up of AI firms as well as helping other businesses navigate through uncertainty during the adoption process."

Not every market is heading the same way. Those reporting high flexible office take-up, meaning more than 25,000 sq m a year, rose from 23% to 36%. But the proportion reporting low activity, under 5,000 sq m, also rose, from 38% to 43%. Both ends grew at once and the middle thinned out.

The supply picture underpins much of it. As of Q2 2026, Europe's office development pipeline had fallen 49% from its 2020 peak to 10.3 million sq m, the lowest level since 2011. With good space genuinely hard to secure in the key markets, occupiers are turning to flex to support growth, bridge lease events and get into a building immediately, without the time and capital a traditional fit-out demands.

And AI has become a demand driver in its own right. The UK, France and the UAE are all markets where strong technology ecosystems, concentrations of AI firms and mature flexible workspace sectors are feeding one another. Around a fifth of the EMEA markets studied now have more than 50 AI firms based in flexible workspace, and C&W notes that number is growing by the week.

In the UK, London's Knowledge Quarter is the standout, with flexible workspace helping emerging AI businesses establish themselves alongside the technology, research and innovation organisations already there.

For Arron Browne, Head of Flexible Offices London at Cushman & Wakefield, flex can do something conventional space cannot: "AI businesses often need to grow quickly and establish themselves close to talent, innovation and investment."

"Flexible workspace is uniquely positioned to support that growth by providing immediate access to high-quality space in the heart of key tech clusters with the ability to jump from five desks to fifty overnight. Propagating these smaller businesses also helps to feed the pipeline for traditional office leasing down the line - a win for the whole market."

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