Close to 73 per cent of office searches by Indians are now for flexible workspaces, and traditional leasing now accounts for fewer than 27 percent of total searches — according to the myHQ report released this week. The report titled “How India Searches for its Office Needs?”, first of its kind demand analysis of the market, notes major shifts in how office space demand is increasingly driven by flexible, on-demand formats, with the phenomena spreading to tier-2 markets and to overseas companies eyeing India.

The extensive report used 387,000 verified workspace enquiries across 30 countries with myHQ, GSC geographic insights, nine years of Google Search Volume data, and myHQ’s SEO data — all judiciously combined, making it the most comprehensive demand-side study of how office space is demand is being expressed in India.

Indians’ coworking queries generate five times the volume of traditional office searches, and the gap has been cumulatively widening. While traditional office searches grew by 48% since 2022, coworking demand consistently outpaces traditional offices in absolute terms.

Said Utkarsh Kawatra, Co-Founder and CEO, myHQ, “Search data is revealing behaviour before it shows up in transactions. What stands out here is not just the scale of demand for flexible workspaces but how specific that demand has become. Corporate professionals are no longer searching for office space in the traditional sense but are instead searching specifically for meeting rooms, day offices, and virtual addresses. India has stopped searching for just offices- it’s now searching for what it needs the office for! That is where the market is evolving and expanding.”

What has changed is not just volume — it’s intent. Generic ‘coworking space’ queries are plateauing while outcome-specific searches explode: meeting room searches surged 187% in three years (34,000 to 98,000 monthly searches), virtual office searches grew 99%, and day pass searches rose 20%. Together, use-case-driven categories now account for nearly 90% of all coworking search demand. The market knows exactly what it wants.

Managed office space is seeing strong growth in terms of what clients are choosing, though it is less visible in search behaviour. Queries for the term have grown 778% since 2022, reaching a peak of 13,471 monthly searches in 2024, but remain 20x lower than coworking in absolute volume. This reflects a gap between how workspace products are defined and how users search for them.

Search volumes indicate sustained growth in overall demand. In the three years before COVID (2017 to 2019), India averaged 57,000 annual searches for coworking. This rose to 69,000 during 2020 and 2021 and has since averaged at 107,000 annually between 2022 and early 2026, marking an 88% increase over the pre-pandemic baseline. Search activity peaked in July 2025 and has remained elevated into early 2026.

Environmental considerations are now visible at the discovery stage. Seven of the ten most-searched office parks in India are green-certified developments, accounting for 66.3% of total office park search volume. With one green-certified tech park alone logging 122,000 monthly searches, the data is clear: sustainability is now a default filter rather than a premium differentiator.

The data reflects a broader set of decisionmakers. Women acount for 24.2% (1 in 4) of all workspace enquiries on the platform, with Bengaluru leading at 27%, followed by Mumbai at 26.8%, Coimbatore at 26.5%, New Delhi at 26.2%, and Hyderabad at 25.8%, indicating broader participation in workspace decision-making.

Notably, there is an increased demand participation by clients across the globe for flexible workspaces. International searches account for 3% of all India office space searches. Within that international segment, the United States leads at 28.9%, followed by the UK (12.8%) and UAE (11.9%). The primary drivers include MNC Global Capability Centre expansions, NRI company registrations and GST address needs, and return-migration planning by Indian professionals based overseas. myHQ’s report provides a clear view of how office space demand is being expressed in real time, with search behaviour offering a direct signal of how workspace needs are evolving across formats and use cases.