The pandemic changed office spaces forever, but the remote work frenzy is slowly subsiding, and coworking spaces in India have made the most of this transition.

Many large companies are moving back to the office now. For instance, Zerodha moved to hybrid working in 2023. The company’s CTO Kailash Nadh said remote working was great for the first year, but lost its appeal soon after.

“It worked out great in the first year, started losing its sheen in the second year, and became detrimental to creativity and collaboration by the third year. The hard lesson we learnt is that effective, long term remote work requires specific skill sets and DNA to pull off,” he said.

Though the transition might have been easy for some, others continue to battle dilemmas to get back to work. According to reports, companies are now seeking help from legal firms to create clear contracts on remote working.

Two distinct phenomena are currently afoot. Firstly, the costs of office spaces have exceeded even the pre-pandemic levels. And secondly, the number of new-age companies needing office spaces went through the roof.

According to a report by Colliers, average rental costs in six major office markets (Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune) has surpassed the pre-pandemic levels. For instance, office space rental charges per square feet in Bengaluru have increased from INR 94.5 in 2019 to INR 96.7 in 2024.

This gap in supply and demand was exactly what Indian coworking startups craved for.

CBRE’s India Office Occupier Survey found that flexible space providers have captured more than 15% of the total office leasing market shares. Nearly half of the surveyed companies designated 10% of their total office space as flexible, and........

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