Flexible office spaces are taking off across Northern Ireland.
At the onset of 2025, 64 such premises are listed on CoworkingCafe, which monitors the market for co-working spaces, 30 of which are in Belfast. Providers of these spaces believe landlords have to be more competitive in 2025 because of the growth in the flexible service office market.
“When we started out [in 2007] this was an unusual concept,” Christine James, founder and chief executive of Blick Shared Studios in Belfast, says. “Now we have a waiting list.”
For companies who no longer want to commit to long-term lets of large buildings, co-working is a no brainer. “A five or 10 year lease is a large overhead especially when you don’t know what the future holds,” Richard McLaughlin, site lead and director of engineering for Optiva, a telecommunications service provider based at Glandore’s Arthur House in Belfast, says.
Optiva, a Canadian company, has been at Arthur House for three years alongside a myriad of other businesses. “It provides everything we need without extra commitment, extra operational expenditure and capital expenditure,” Richard says. “A coworking space gives you a starting point. It’s ready-made, ready to go, turnkey. Open the door and you’ve got everything set up. It also gives you the flexibility of growing over time.”
According to a recent survey of 250 office landlords in the UK, by workspace provider InfinitSpace, 10% of landlords predict their portfolio will be almost entirely flexible by 2030. Co-working spaces come in different shapes and sizes. Businesses can hire dedicated desks: fixed workspaces where they can personalise their environment while accessing amenities. Hot desks, on the other hand, are shared by multiple users.
Blick Shared Studios, which has two co-working spaces in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter and one on Great Northern Street, caters solely in dedicated desk space for the creative industries (film and TV, design, media, advertising, software, illustration, fine art, etc). “We only provide dedicated desk spaces because most creatives need their own IT equipment,” Christine says. “You basically rent a desk and you come in and out whenever you want.
Some of Northern Ireland’s leading fit-out firms are behind the work developing such spaces, from co-working, to bespoke offices.
That includes Antrim’s Calibro Workspace, which has recently completed work for MCS at The Ewart building on Bedford Street in Belfast city centre.
Formation Works is Northern Ireland’s biggest provider of flexible office space. It has 12 spaces in Northern Ireland, including The Kelvin on College Square East beside Grand Central in Belfast. “We have solutions for everyone from growing start-ups through to established enterprises and we work with a selection of sole traders,” Darren Dalzell, marketing manager, says.
“They can rent a hot desk or their own private space in the office.” Flexible working is a growing concept.”
Glandore operates Arthur House and Arthur Place in Belfast and has locations in Dublin and Cork. The two buildings in Belfast consist of around 900 desks and 36,000 square foot, accommodating 40 to 50 companies – small, medium, large, local and international – covering a broad range of sectors. Charity organisations and industry associations, including Women in Business NI and Renewable NI, are also on site.
“We define ourselves as a flexible-service office provider,” Nial Borthistle, business development and partnerships manager at Glandore, says. “We focus 98% of our business on private office rental. Individuals and companies can rent a desk on a monthly basis in our co-working suite. Companies can also take a virtual office.”
The average lease at Glandore is about 12 months: an arrangement that suits some companies who require temporary space while their own facility is being fitted out. At Formation Works “leases can range from monthly contracts up to year or longer,” says Darren Dalzell. “We can work with clients on their individual needs.” Blick Shared Studios has a minimum term of three months.
When did it all begin? Service offices – multiple occupancy houses in particular – have been around for years. Glandore has been in Belfast since 2006. But in 2020, the pandemic accelerated the demand for alternatives to traditional offices and hybrid working reshaped office requirements for companies like Optiva. “Some people are in the office three days a week. Some people are in two, some people five,” says Richard McLaughlin. “Those two years of Covid completely changed the landscape of working.”
Within the flexible and co-working model, companies don’t have to worry about dealing with utilities. Instead, they can focus on their core activities. “We’ve got the highest tech, wi-fi and security,” Darren Dalzell of Formation Works, says. We have versatile meeting rooms: our meeting room spaces are fully customisable. Everything is bespoke and customisable for the needs of our members.”
Formation Works designed office space for Lambert Smith Hampton, a real estate consultancy who moved into a full floor of The Kelvin. Intapp, a global software provider, recently moved into a 2,500 sq ft space in Arthur Place and thus “didn’t have the headache of having to source a contractor,” says Glandore’s Nial Borthistle. “We worked with the architecture firm and building contractor and sorted everything out for them.”
Phone booths [a small room sound proofed room for one person] collaboration spaces, breakout rooms, cluster huddle rooms are among fit-out options. Glandore installed an eight person meeting room for Intapp. Co-working environments can be cost efficient. “We work a lot with creatives and freelancers who maybe don’t earn that much money. It wouldn’t make financial sense for them to rent a whole office,” Christine James of Blick Shared Studios, says.
According to CoworkingCafe’s last quarterly report, Northern Ireland is good value. While a dedicated desk averages £210 a month in the UK, in NI it is £200. Open workspace memberships cost £160 across the UK. In NI they are £135. Co-working environments are not entirely city-based either. Formation Works is set to open a new location in Newtownards in 2025. Craigavon Industrial Development Organisation (CIDO) has three co-working spaces and the Workhouse in Enniskillen recently opened.
For a large organisation like Formation Works, “one of the key benefits is access to all of our sites. So if you’re based in The Kelvin and you have a client meeting in Cookstown, or you need to do business in Lisburn, you can move between the locations. You will have direct access to any of our 12 locations and you can work fluidly between any of them.”
Most providers pride themselves on their community networks: shared spaces that allow different businesses to connect, swap ideas and perhaps even collaborate. Formation Works hosts regular networking events and their occupiers can avail of other businesses on site: health and wellness studios and an onsite nursery and crèche in Armagh, for example. Glandore offers wellness programs, learning development coaches, nutritionists, reflexology and yoga for their occupiers. “Glandore has a community spirit,” says Optiva’s Richard McLaughlin. “We’ve got our own private office but outside there are other offices, employees, companies, communal spaces and regular events that allow us to get together.”
Despite the upsurge in demand for co-working and flexible office environments, rumours of the demise of the traditional long-term lease are exaggerated – at least for now. “There will always be a need for traditional office space because some companies might want to own their own building or have their own turnkey solutions,” Nial Borthistle says. For other companies, the model appears to be reaping rewards. For companies of our size, 10 to 15 to 30 people,” Richard McLaughlin of Optiva, says. “This makes absolute sense.”