The UK Coworking Guide: Spaces, Costs and How to Choose

A coworking space is a shared office where individuals and small teams rent a desk, or a private office, by the month rather than leasing a floor. You get a furnished workspace, fast internet, meeting rooms, a kitchen and a community of other businesses in one monthly membership, and you can start the day you sign up.

Rubberdesk lists every coworking space in the UK, from WeWork and IWG to the independents in each city, with live availability and prices, and the service is free. Tell us how many desks you need and where, and we will send a shortlist that fits. Get a free shortlist or search coworking spaces in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

• What is a coworking space?
• Hot desk, dedicated desk or private office?
• Coworking, serviced office, managed office or home?
• Who coworking suits
• What does a coworking desk cost?
• How to choose a coworking space
• Types of coworking operator
• How Rubberdesk helps
• Top coworking locations
• Coworking guides and comparisons

What is a coworking space?

A coworking space is a building, or a floor of one, run by an operator who rents workspace to many businesses at once. The open plan desks are shared; the meeting rooms, kitchens, phone booths and breakout areas are shared; and most operators also rent lockable private offices for teams that want their own room with the shared facilities around it. You pay per desk per month on a rolling or fixed term membership, with no lease, no fit-out and no separate bills.

What you get with a coworking membership

• A desk and chair, with lockable storage on dedicated plans
• High speed internet and Wi-Fi
• Meeting rooms, usually with a monthly credit allowance
• Kitchen, coffee and breakout space, and phone booths for calls
• Reception, post handling and a business address
• Printing, usually with an allowance
• Events, a members' network and often showers and bike storage
• 24 hour access on most monthly plans

Hot desk, dedicated desk or private office?

Most operators sell three kinds of membership. Which one you need depends on how often you come in and how much privacy your work needs.

Membership	What you get	Suits
Hot desk	Any free desk in the shared area, first come first served. Sold monthly, or as day passes and part time plans	Freelancers, remote workers and anyone in two or three days a week
Dedicated desk	Your own desk in the shared area, left set up with your screen and storage	Sole traders and pairs who are in most days
Private office	A lockable room for your team inside the coworking space, with the shared facilities around it	Teams of 2 to 20 who need privacy or a fixed address

Beyond about ten desks a private office in a coworking space and a serviced office are the same product, and the operators overlap. At that size compare both.

Coworking, serviced office, managed office or home?

Option	What you get	Term	Suits
Coworking desk	A hot desk or dedicated desk in a shared, open plan space	Monthly	Individuals and very small teams
Serviced office	A private, furnished office with shared reception, meeting rooms and kitchens, all inclusive per desk	3 to 24 months	Teams of 2 to 50 who want their own room and a quick move
Managed office	A whole floor or building fitted out for you and run by an operator, with private facilities	1 to 5 years	Teams of 20 to 200 who want their own front door without a lease
Working from home	No cost and no commute, and no separation between work and home, no meeting rooms and no colleagues	None	Anyone who can, some of the time

Most coworking members are also working from home part of the week. The question is usually not coworking or home but how many days of each. For a fuller comparison see our guide to serviced offices versus coworking.

Who coworking suits

• Freelancers, consultants and contractors who want a professional base and other people around them
• Start-ups and small teams that expect to grow and do not want to guess their headcount two years out
• Remote and hybrid staff of larger companies, whose employer pays for a desk near home
• Digital and media agencies, which tend to value the community and events
• Law firms and other professional firms in the private offices, where the shared reception and meeting rooms do the front of house
• Project teams and regional outposts of large corporates

What does a coworking desk cost?

Coworking is priced per desk per month, and the figures below come from live listings on Rubberdesk and update weekly.

• Across the UK the median coworking desk is £270 a month, against £399 a desk for a private office
• In Central London a coworking desk is £405 a month, and a private office £683 a desk
• Outside London a private office runs at £389 a desk in Manchester and £375 in Birmingham, with coworking desks well below that
• Hot desks cost less than dedicated desks at the same space, typically by a quarter to a third, and day passes run from about £20 to £40

Prices as at October 2026. Prices exclude VAT. Most memberships are monthly, and a 6 or 12 month commitment usually earns a discount. For a city by city breakdown see our price guides:

• UK price guide
• Central London price guide
• City of London price guide
• Manchester price guide
• Birmingham price guide
• Leeds price guide
• Scotland price guide

How to choose a coworking space

Visit two or three before you decide, at the time of day you would normally be there. Noise, light and how full the shared area is tell you more than a tour at 10am on a Tuesday.

• Commute: walking time from the station, and whether there are other locations you can use on the same membership
• Desk or office: whether a shared desk will work for the calls you take, or you need a private room
• Meeting rooms: how many, how booked up they are, and what your credit allowance covers
• Internet and IT: dedicated bandwidth, a private network if you need one, and what happens when it goes down
• Access and security: 24 hour access, whether guests can be signed in, and locker or storage space
• Community: whether the events, introductions and members' network matter to you, or whether you want quiet
• Term and exit: notice period, deposit and whether the rate rises on renewal
• Total cost: what the membership includes, what is extra, and what the same desk costs on a longer term

Not sure where to start? Tell us what you need and we will narrow the market down to a shortlist worth visiting.

Types of coworking operator

Hundreds of operators run coworking spaces in the UK. They fall into a few groups, and the right one depends on whether you want a network of locations, a particular neighbourhood or a particular crowd.

• Global networks: WeWork and IWG (Regus and Spaces) give one membership access to hundreds of buildings, which suits teams spread across cities or travelling staff.
• National and London chains: Fora, Huckletree, Work.Life, Mindspace, LABS, Runway East and Uncommon each run several London sites, often with a distinct style and community, and some have regional buildings too.
• Regional specialists: Bruntwood in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool, Orega and Clockwise across the UK, Colony in Manchester, Cubo in the Midlands and the North, and Wizu in Yorkshire.
• Independents and boutiques: single site operators such as The Trampery, Department and DeskLodge, where the building and the founder set the tone.
• Landlord flex: office landlords running their own flexible floors, such as Storey and x+why, often with the option to grow into a managed floor in the same building.
• Sector hubs and incubators: spaces built around tech, creative, science or social enterprise tenants, with mentoring and events as part of the offer. They tend to be selective about members and good value if you fit.

The operator directory lists every one with their current spaces. Our head to head comparisons:

• WeWork vs Regus
• WeWork vs Landmark
• Mindspace vs Fora
• LABS vs Orega

How Rubberdesk helps

Rubberdesk is a flexible office marketplace and advisory service. Every coworking space, serviced office and managed office in the UK is listed on the platform with live availability and pricing, so you can compare the whole market in one place.

1. Tell us what you need. Desks or an office, areas you would consider, budget and start date. A phone call or the form on this page is enough.
2. We send a shortlist. Our team knows the buildings and the operators, and comes back with the spaces that fit, usually within a day.
3. We arrange visits and negotiate. We book the tours, chase the paperwork and negotiate the rate and terms on your behalf.

The service is free to you and we are impartial: operators pay us when you move in, and we recommend the right space rather than the one that pays most. Call us on 0800 699 0655 or get started online.

Top coworking locations

Start with a location and then narrow the search by desks and budget.

• London Coworking
• Manchester Coworking
• Birmingham Coworking
• Canary Wharf Coworking
• Paddington Coworking
• Hammersmith Coworking
• Soho Coworking
• Kings Cross Coworking
• Fitzrovia Coworking
• Holborn Coworking
• Westminster Coworking
• Camden Coworking

Frequently asked questions

What is a coworking space?

A coworking space is a shared office run by an operator, where individuals and small teams rent a hot desk, a dedicated desk or a private office by the month. Internet, meeting rooms, kitchens and a members' community are included in the membership.

How much does a coworking desk cost in the UK?

The median coworking desk across the UK is £270 per month on live Rubberdesk listings, and £405 in Central London. A private office in the same spaces is £399 per desk. Prices as at October 2026 and exclude VAT.

What is the difference between coworking and a serviced office?

Coworking is a desk in a shared, open plan space on a monthly membership. A serviced office is a private, lockable room for your team on a 3 to 24 month agreement, with the same shared reception, meeting rooms and kitchens around it. Beyond about ten desks the two overlap and most operators sell both.

Can I rent a coworking desk by the day?

Yes. Most operators sell day passes and part time plans alongside monthly hot desk memberships, typically for about £20 to £40 a day in London and less elsewhere. A monthly membership works out cheaper from about two days a week.

How do I find a coworking space?

Rubberdesk lists every coworking space in the UK with live availability and pricing, and the service is free. Tell us how many desks you need, where and from when, and we send a shortlist of spaces that fit and arrange the visits.

Coworking guides and comparisons

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