Giovanni Palavicini hosts Jim Groves from Rubberdesk on the Flex Uncensored podcast to dig into the drive for more transparency and data in flex office markets.

Rubberdesk‘s Q4 2025 London Flexible Office report shows that managed offices now command a 40% rate premium over serviced pace (£805 vs £575 per desk). While available space for Serviced shrunk by 7.3% in Q4, Managed spaces grew 5.5% as London’s landlords continue to convert more stock into managed format.

Their definitions: Serviced offices (also coworking spaces) are multi-desk offices where amenities are shared and rented short-term. Managed offices are standalone spaces where amenities and branding are specific to the business and rented short term. The latter would usually have their own entrance but may still share access to end of trip or gym facilities in the same building with other managed or leased offices.

Rubberdesk share that Australia’s flexible office market has continued tightening in Q4 2025, with national desk rates rising 2.4% to $683 while available space contracted 8.8% to 139,990 sqm. The flight to quality persists, with operators rebalancing portfolios toward small-to-medium team configurations. Enterprise-scale space remains constrained as operators reconfigure larger suites into smaller, higher-margin formats to meet sustained demand.

Tom Petryshen and the team at Rubberdesk Australia shared their latest quarterly market report for the country, noting that even though there’s been a 6.3% increase in available space nationally (up to 153.480 sqm), the median desk rate also climbed 1.7% to $667 per desk per month.

They also report that new, premium supply came online in Adelaide, Canberra, and Syndey, and was absorbed while rates held firm. However they also flag that expansion was not uniform across the country with major cities diverging into distinct supply- or demand-led directions. In short, Sydney and Melbourne saw over 8.5% and 9% new supply, while prices stayed firm at $1k and $925 per desk respectively. Brisbane saw both supply and rates go up by 3.2% and 2.3% (to $649 p/desk). Perth however saw available space dip by 19%. Adelaide saw 48% more space and 6.2% bump in rates, while Canberra saw 25% more supply with 8% increase in desk rates.

Rubberdesk‘s Gareth Smith argues flexible workspaces are leading a post-pandemic revival of workplace events in UK urban areas, where workplace/work events used to be part of ‘regular city life’.

Gareth explores how operators including techspace, Spacemade, Fora, Business Environment Group, and Creo are hosting weekly gatherings ranging from cocktail hours to wellness sessions and themed lunches to combat workplace isolation.

Hosting events at your spaces? Might be a good idea to add these into proposals for teams up to 20 staff who lack dedicated event coordinators as tools for talent retention and networking while also addressing blurred work-life boundaries in hybrid work models.