San Fran and Stockholm top the table for highest coworking costs across the globe

Savills Tech Cities 2019 research programme found that San Francisco has the highest coworking costs per month for a desk in a private office at $1,050. The report notes that it is the city’s strong business environment, talent pool and transport links that is likely to have driven coworking costs upwards, with San Francisco ranking at number two in the Tech Cities Index, just behind New York.

In fact, the research shows that many of cities inside the top 10 of the highest ranking coworking costs for a desk in a private office, such as Stockholm, Boston, New York, London, Austin, Los Angeles and Singapore, also sat within the top 10 of the Tech Cities Index.  This demonstrates their growing popularity as a business destination, particularly for the start-up community, and their evolution in line with the global tech sector.

One anomaly to this is Amsterdam, which ranked fourth as a Tech City but is just outside the top 10 in terms of coworking costs at $770 per month for a desk in a private office, demonstrating why it is proving to be so popular with start-ups at the moment.

Across the majority of the 30 countries that were analysed as part of Savills research, coworking is an expanding market that is supported by the growth of the tech sector across the globe. It is therefore not surprising that some of the most established and renowned coworking cities are seeing higher costs as demand increases. Coworking is a sector that has expanded at a fast pace and there is still room for it to grow further in line with changing occupier needs and the pace at which we are seeing start-up businesses enter the market.

For many start-ups and SME’s, particularly in the tech arena, being in the right location is vital in terms of profile, talent attraction and being close to businesses of a similar nature that will enable them to grow. As some of the markets towards the lower end of the ranking for coworking desk costs gain traction in this market and attract a greater variety of providers to the city, we would expect to see an increase in this cost.

Within this report Savills measured what makes a successful Tech City against 100 individual metrics, ranging from the number of days needed to start a business through to the cost of a flat white coffee, grouped into six categories: business environment, tech environment, city buzz & wellness, talent pool, real estate costs, and mobility. Each category is weighted to reflect its importance to the tech sector.

You can read the full press release here.