New Delhi, Oct 13 — India has retained its position as the world’s most mature flexible office market and is expected to cross the 100 MSF mark in 2026, expanding to approximately 160 million square feet by 2030, a report said on Tuesday.
The country's flexible office inventory reached 88.7 million square feet in the first half of 2026, accounting for 10.5 per cent of the country’s office stock, the report from Cushman & Wakefield said.
Moreover, the country scored 100 per cent on the firm’s Flexible Office Market Maturity Index and flexible workspace is evolving from an amenity into a strategic component of occupier real estate portfolios, it added.
According to an Upflex analysis, India’s share of global bookings increased sharply from 2.2 per cent in H1 2025 to 10.2 per cent in H1 2026, making it the second-most active market globally after the United States, the report noted.
India continues to demonstrate strong momentum across occupier demand, supply growth and operator activity. The expansion is being underpinned by sustained occupier demand.
However, flexible office operators leased 8.5 MSF across India’s top eight cities in H1 2026, their strongest-ever first-half performance, while flexible workspace now accounts for around 20 per cent of overall office leasing in India.
In addition, operators leased 44.1 MSF of space, representing more than 720,000 flex seats between 2023 and 2025, while managed office requirements averaged between 350 and 500 seats, the report noted.
Meanwhile, seat demand has expanded consistently despite periods of macroeconomic volatility, growing nearly 7-fold from nearly 38,000 seats in 2020 to an estimated 3 lakh in 2026.
“Greater institutional participation is bringing long-term capital and discipline into the sector, while evolving occupier expectations are pushing operators towards higher-quality, more sophisticated offerings. With newer demand pools also emerging, including AI-led businesses, the opportunity for flex is becoming both broader and more enduring,” said Ramita Arora, Executive Managing Director, Bengaluru & Head - Flex, India, Cushman & Wakefield.
Demand is evolving too with GCCs and multinational companies increasingly using flex to enter and expand across markets. AI is emerging as another growth opportunity, with India among the leading markets to have developed a mature AI ecosystem within the flexible office sector.
Plug-and-play scalable workplaces are particularly aligned with the rapidly evolving space requirements of AI companies, the report noted.