India’s office real estate market closed 2025 on a historic high, marking its strongest performance ever as occupier demand rose throughout major cities and reshaped workplace strategies. According to Cushman & Wakefield’s Q4 MarketBeat report, net absorption across the top eight cities touched 61.4 million sq ft (MSF), a 25% year-on-year increase and the highest annual figure on record. Interestingly, flexible workspace operators emerged as the second-largest demand driver, accounting for 15.3% of total leasing. It underlines how well entrenched managed and flexible models have become in corporate real estate planning.

The breadth and variety of this demand are noteworthy. Bengaluru and Delhi NCR topped the list, with net absorption figures of 14.4 million square feet and 10.9 million square feet, respectively. Chennai, however, truly impressed, posting a remarkable 187% increase in annual absorption. Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata also saw robust demand, proving that corporate growth isn’t confined to the usual centres. This nationwide surge shows rising confidence among both domestic and international companies, as India cemented its position as a favoured location for technology, engineering, manufacturing, BFSI and Global Capability Centres (GCCs).

India’s office sector landscape of 2025 saw a major transformation.  Managed and flexible workspaces evolved from a specialised option to a standard practice for many businesses. Companies like COWRKS, Smartworks, WeWork India, Awfis, and IndiQube have become integral to the office strategies of major corporations. They offer benefits such as quick deployment, adaptable operations, and better capital utilisation.

This trend is being reinforced by marquee corporate moves. In one of the largest deals in the segment, JP Morgan leased around 2.7 lakh sq ft at Brookfield Properties’ managed workspace provider, COWRKS, in Mumbai’s Powai, signalling strong institutional confidence in managed office platforms. Smartworks Coworking Spaces has leased around 1.66 lakh sq ft with Wolters Kluwer (India) Pvt. Ltd in Pune.

Gaurav Bhatia – Senior Vice President, Leasing, Brookfield Properties, shared, “Managed workspaces have firmly established themselves as a preferred choice, with flexible and managed workspace operators now accounting for over 15% of overall office leasing in India. This reflects how deeply embedded the model has become in corporate real estate strategies. Across sectors such as GCCs, IT-BPM, BFSI and manufacturing, organisations are increasingly leveraging managed workspaces to enable rapid expansion, support market entry, and drive portfolio consolidation while ensuring consistency in quality, location, and cost efficiency. Strong demand outweighed new office supply, leading to a 210-basis point year-on-year decline in overall vacancy, which has been the steepest annual fall on record. Managed workspaces and are no longer seen as short-term or transitional solutions. This momentum is expected to strengthen further in 2026, reinforcing India’s position as a global hub for enterprise and innovation.”

Despite over 53 MSF of new office supply being added in 2025, vacancy levels declined sharply across most cities. The overall vacancy rate dropped by 210 basis points (bps), indicating that demand continues to exceed supply. This tightening is also strengthening rental values and improving developer confidence, particularly in core business districts and technology corridors.

Within the managed workspace ecosystem, players like COWRKS, a Brookfield Properties Company. are scaling rapidly to meet enterprise demand. With its Enterprise Plus portfolio, COWRKS in 2025 announced an expansion of over 1 million sq ft across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Chennai and Hyderabad, focusing on fully customised, design-led managed offices for enterprises and GCCs. The model delivers end-to-end design, build, and operational capabilities tailored to the unique needs of enterprise clients. India’s coworking sector has been witnessing significant expansion across major metros and emerging business hubs, driven by rising enterprise demand and hybrid work trends. Established players such as Smartworks are targeting strong growth with plans to enter new cities and achieve 30–35% annual revenue growth through portfolio additions, alongside signing large space deals such as over 8 lakh sq ft in Mumbai. 91Springboard has expanded in South India with new hubs in Bengaluru and Chennai totalling over 1 lakh sq ft, while 315Work Avenue is planning to add around 2 million sq ft of flexible office space by FY 2026 with a ~Rs 400 crore investment. Reports also show that coworking operators in India leased a record amount of premium office space in 2024, and international providers such as JustCo are launching flagship centres in Gurugram and Bengaluru to cater to growing demand for adaptable and premium workspace solutions.

Looking ahead, India’s office market appears well-positioned for continued growth in 2026 and beyond. The convergence of solid economic fundamentals, global capability expansion, and the maturity of managed workspace platforms is changing how organisations think about offices — not as fixed assets, but as dynamic business infrastructure. As flexibility, speed and employee experience take centre stage, managed and flexible workspaces are set to remain at the core of India’s evolving commercial real estate story.