The sixth edition of the Office Report 2026, compiled by pro m², analyses the interaction between modern work organisation and operational space requirements. The survey is based on an expanded dataset compared to the previous year, covering 164 organisations with a total of around 225,300 employees, 186,000 workstations and 5.48 million square metres of office space. The focus of the study is on the practical implementation of modern working environments and their impact on space consumption, collaboration and performance.
For quantitative evaluation, the analysis uses the New Work Score, which captures criteria such as activity-based working, desk sharing, mobile working, and acceptance by management and teams. The average value across the surveyed companies stands at 45 per cent within a range of five to 90 per cent. This reveals a clear correlation with spatial requirements: organisations with a high index value occupy an average of 13.2 square metres per employee, whereas companies with a low score record 36.6 square metres. In this context, Jonas Kubon, managing partner of pro m², notes that working-from-home policies alone are not the decisive factor, but rather the harmonised interplay between spatial structure, culture and processes.
Presence patterns and workstation occupancy in detail
As an arithmetic mean, existing workstations are currently 62 per cent occupied. On peak days, utilisation rises to up to 78 per cent, whilst on low-frequency days figures of 34 per cent are recorded. Employees work remotely for an average of 2.4 days per week. For 54 per cent of the surveyed organisations, the level of office presence remained unchanged over the past two years, demonstrating that a widespread return to traditional office structures is not taking place.
- —Average space requirement: 18.3 square metres per employee
- —Front-runners in the report: The ten most efficient organisations use an average of 7.35 square metres per employee
- —Potential assessment: 48 per cent of surveyed companies identify internal scope for further space reduction
Jan Oelze, also managing partner of pro m², highlights that average values are insufficient for informed real estate decisions. Instead, specific peak utilisation levels and the temporal distribution of actual demand are decisive in order to target investments directly at value-generating areas.
Strategic relevance for the German office market
At the federal level, the report calculates a theoretical optimisation potential of 194 million square metres of office space that could potentially be released or repurposed for alternative uses. Released capital offers companies the opportunity to enhance the quality of remaining space and focus it more specifically on concentrated work and interpersonal exchange. Sustainable space planning therefore requires a holistic synthesis of remote working policies, sharing concepts and actual utilisation patterns.
