How much office space do I need? A guide for startups and growing teams
- Businesses
Updated 23 October 2026. Written by the architects at blng studio, for founders and operations leads planning a first or next office in the UK.
Why there's no single "office space per person" figure
Search for office space per person and you'll find a different square-foot rule on every agent's website. The numbers differ because they measure different things. Some describe a whole office floor, others only the desk area. Some assume everyone is in every day, others assume a hybrid team. A figure that suits a call centre won't suit a design studio.
Two published UK figures are worth knowing, because they come from a named source and say what they measure.
The BCO design density: 8 to 10 m² per person
The British Council for Offices publishes a guide to specifying office buildings. When it updated that guide in 2023, the BCO said: "10m2 per person is recommended as the occupancy density design standard for general workspace." It added that "the former high occupancy density allowance of 8m2 per person has been redefined as a special use case for exceptional cases."
That gives a range of 8 to 10 m² per person, roughly 86 to 108 sq ft. Read it for what it is: a figure developers and their designers use to size an office building, across the office floor. It is a useful sense-check for a tenant. It is not a brief, and a well-planned office for your team may need more or less.
The legal minimum: 11 cubic metres per person
The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 require "sufficient floor area, height and unoccupied space" for health, safety and welfare. The Health and Safety Executive's guidance on the regulations sets the figure: each person should have at least 11 cubic metres of space, and any part of a room higher than 3.0 m counts as 3.0 m. In a room with a 2.4 m ceiling, HSE says that works out at a floor area of about 4.6 m² per person.
That's a minimum, and HSE notes it doesn't apply to rooms used for meetings and similar purposes. It tells you when a room is too full, not how big your office should be.
Start with peak attendance, not headcount
The most common sizing mistake is to take everyone on the payroll, multiply by a figure per person and call it the requirement. Most teams are never all in at once. Others pack the office on one or two days a week and leave it quiet the rest of the time.
So start with three numbers:
- Headcount today, by team.
- Headcount over the lease. If you're signing for several years, what do your hiring plans say about the middle and end of that term?
- Peak attendance. How many people are in on your busiest normal day? Leave out the once-a-year all-hands, but not the regular team day.
If you already have an office, desk-booking or entry data will tell you. If not, a two-week diary or a short question to each team lead is enough to start. Decide whether people will have their own desks or share them. How many desks you provide for a given peak is your call, and it's worth making on purpose rather than leaving it to the floor that happens to be on offer.
Where the space goes: desks, meeting rooms and support
An office is more than desks. We split every brief into the same few kinds of space, because each one is sized in a different way.
- Desks and focus space. Desks for the peak day, plus somewhere to make a call or concentrate: phone booths, a quiet room or a few desks set apart. Sized from peak attendance.
- Meeting rooms. Count them from how you actually meet: the number of video calls at once, client meetings, interviews, team sessions. Many small rooms often get more use than one large boardroom. Sized from your meeting pattern, not from headcount.
- Support space. Kitchen and breakout, storage, lockers (you'll need them if desks are shared), printing, post, a comms or IT cupboard, a first aid or wellbeing room. Some of these are fixed whatever your size, so they take a bigger share of a small office.
- Circulation. The routes between all of the above. You can't remove it, and how much you need depends on the shape of the floor.
In a multi-let building, stairs, lifts and toilets usually sit in a shared core run by the landlord. In a self-contained building, they may all be yours. Either way, check that there are enough toilets for your peak. HSE's guidance under the same regulations sets a minimum for mixed use, based on the maximum number of people likely to be at work at any one time: 2 toilets and 2 washbasins for 6 to 25 people, and 3 of each for 26 to 50.
From headcount to floor area in six steps
This is the order we work through when we write a brief for a growing team.
- Headcount, today and over the lease.
- Peak attendance on your busiest normal day.
- Work settings for that peak: desks, focus rooms, quiet spaces.
- Meeting rooms, counted and sized from how you meet.
- Support space: kitchen, storage, lockers, print, comms.
- A test-fit on a real floor. Circulation, columns, the position of the core and the windows all change how much of a floor you can use. Only a layout drawn on the actual plan tells you whether the brief fits.
A worked example. Say your team is 30 people and your busiest normal day brings in 22. At the BCO's 8 to 10 m² per person, 22 people suggests something in the region of 176 to 220 m² (about 1,890 to 2,370 sq ft). That's a sense-check for your search, not an answer. The brief tells you which mix of desks, rooms and support those 22 people need. The test-fit tells you whether a particular floor delivers it.
How much office space for 10, 20 or 50 people?
These are the same sums at the BCO's 8 to 10 m² per person, for the number of people in the office at the same time:
| People in at peak | At 8–10 m² per person | Roughly, in sq ft | HSE minimum toilets (mixed use) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 80–100 m² | 860–1,080 sq ft | 2 toilets, 2 washbasins |
| 20 | 160–200 m² | 1,720–2,150 sq ft | 2 toilets, 2 washbasins |
| 50 | 400–500 m² | 4,310–5,380 sq ft | 3 toilets, 3 washbasins |
Use the ranges to filter listings, not to sign. Small floors are often less efficient than the arithmetic suggests, because a kitchen, a meeting room and storage take up space however few people you have. A long, narrow floor or one with lots of columns can hold fewer desks than a square one of the same area.
Planning for growth over the lease
A lease commits you for years, and a growing company's headcount rarely stays still. There are a few ways to handle that:
- Size for the middle of the term, not just day one, and accept some spare space early on.
- Plan a layout that can change: meeting rooms that can become desk space, or desk space that can take more people at a pinch.
- Negotiate flexibility in the lease: a break clause, or rights over adjacent space. Our office lease checklist covers what to check in the heads of terms.
- Take flexible or serviced space while your numbers are uncertain, and write the brief for your next move in the meantime.
Whichever route you take, write the growth assumption down. It's the number most likely to be argued about later.
Why a test-fit on the floor you're considering matters
The area on the agent's particulars and the space you can actually use are not the same thing. Columns, a deep floor plate with little daylight in the middle, an awkward core, fixed risers and narrow wings all eat into it. Two floors with the same area can hold quite different layouts.
A test-fit is a quick layout of your brief on the floor plan you're considering. It shows whether your desks, rooms and support space fit, what has to give if they don't, and what to ask the landlord before you commit. If you're about to talk to agents or fit-out contractors, read how to write an office fit-out brief first.
The Workspace Brief Sprint does this for one floor: a requirements brief, a hybrid headcount and space model, a Cat A / Cat B budget range, one test-fit and a list of questions for your landlord. It's from £2,450 + VAT for a floor of up to about 465 m², with a target delivery of 10 working days. We don't carry out fit-out works ourselves.
Frequently asked questions
How much office space per person is standard in the UK?
There's no single legal standard for how big an office should be. The British Council for Offices recommends 10 m² per person as the design density for general office space, with 8 m² per person kept for exceptional cases. Treat 8 to 10 m² as a sense-check, applied to the number of people in at your peak, and test the result on a real floor.
What is the minimum office space per person in the UK?
HSE's guidance on the Workplace Regulations 1992 sets a minimum of 11 cubic metres per person, counting ceiling height up to 3.0 m. With a 2.4 m ceiling that's about 4.6 m² of floor area per person. It's a legal minimum for a workroom, not a figure to plan an office around.
How much office space do I need for 20 employees?
It depends on how many of the 20 are in at once. If all 20 are in on your busiest day, the BCO's 8 to 10 m² per person gives 160 to 200 m² (about 1,720 to 2,150 sq ft) as a sense-check. If your peak is lower, size for the peak. HSE's minimum for 6 to 25 people is 2 toilets and 2 washbasins.
Should a startup take serviced or flexible office space instead?
It can be a good fit while your headcount is hard to predict, because you can move or grow without a long lease. The same questions still apply: how many people at peak, how you meet and what support space you need. Answer them first, and the comparison between a serviced office and a leased floor gets much easier.
Sources
- British Council for Offices, BCO announces new recommendations for greener and healthier offices (16 Feb 2023, on the BCO Guide to Specification 2023).
- HSE, How much space should each person have in a room? (Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, regulation 10 and its Approved Code of Practice, L24).
- HSE, How many toilets do I need in my workplace? (regulation 20).
- Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.
Planning your first or next office?
Tell us about your team and the floors you're looking at. In a free intro call, we'll talk through your headcount, how you work and whether a brief and test-fit would help before you sign.