Coworking Trends Across the U.S.

Coworking spaces are becoming increasingly present across the globe as an alternative to the traditional office space. In fact, the coworking industry has had a major boom in the last decade, and many people are starting to explore coworking spaces as viable options for their 9-5 jobs.

Coworking spaces are changing the landscape of how small businesses and remote workers perform their job duties. As a distributed team, we were interested to see what trends were present for the coworking industry. To find these trends, we explored data and listings from sites like Statista and Coworker.com.

Curious about coworking trends in the United States? Check out our findings below.

Sources of Data: Yelp and U.S. Census Bureau

Coworking has been a rising trend over the last decade, and we were curious to see how many coworking spaces are in various cities across the U.S. To determine the number of coworking spaces in select cities, we totaled the number of shared office space listings on Yelp then calculated the number of coworking spaces per 100,000 residents using the city’s 2017 population. The city with the most coworking spaces is San Francisco with an impressive 51.45 spaces per 100,000 people. Right behind it is Miami with an average of 49.21 coworking spaces. Other cities that have an impressive amount of coworking spaces are Atlanta (47.91), Washington D.C. (42.80), Denver (31.51), and Seattle (30.77).

Source of Data: The Instant Group

Because coworking has become so popular across the United States, we wanted to take a look at which states have the most expensive monthly costs per single coworker. Topping the list at $1,250 per month is Colorado, and following closely behind is Massachusetts at $1,213 per month. At the end of this list is Texas, which would set workers back $926 per month. And while we’ve proven that everything is not bigger in Texas, that is still a rather large investment to make monthly.

Source of Data: The Instant Group

Conversely, we wanted to see which states would have the least expensive monthly cost. The least expensive state for coworking is North Dakota with a monthly cost of just $239. Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Indiana are behind that at relatively the same price. And at the top of the spectrum is Kansas with a monthly spend of $600.

Source of Data: Statista

Since coworking is becoming increasingly popular, we wanted to take a look at some of the reasons why people chose to work in a communal space rather in the comforts of their home or a coffee shop. Most people, a whopping 59%, said that they wanted to tap into the “social and enjoyable atmosphere” coworking spaces offer. Following closely behind that, many people agreed that “interacting with others” (56%) and having “a community” are important to them.

Source of Data: Google Trends

We also wanted to take a look at how people started to interact with the topic of coworking, specifically in regards to them searching the terms “coworking” and “coworking spaces” online. In 2005, there was a low search volume for both terms, but they started to steadily increase as time went on. As the coworking craze started to gain traction, search interest did as well. But, even as search volume increased, people were looking to understand what coworking was rather than needing space to work.

“Coworking” was continuously being searched more than its counterpart until 2014 when they first intersect. Interestingly, between 2017 and 2018, “coworking” search volume took a dive, while “coworking spaces” continued to rise.

Source of Data: Statista

The coworking industry has taken the world by storm. In 2005, there were only 3 coworking spaces in the entire world. And as of 2017, that number has skyrocketed to a staggering 15,000 and that number is only slated to grow. These figures are a testament to the rise in digital workplaces and remote working.

Sources of Data: CityFeet and Coworker.com

With the rise in coworking across the United States, we wanted to look at what the cost of a coworking space pass would be compared to the cost of the bare minimum amount of office space required for a single employee (100 square feet). To determine the cost of office space for 1 employee, we used the annual cost of renting 100 square feet of commercial office space in each city according to CityFeet listing averages. For the coworking space pass averages, we calculated the average cost of all coworking spaces listed on Coworker.com in each city. In most of the cities we surveyed across the country, the cost breaks down in favor of office space. Only in five cities – New York, Portland, San Antonio, Seattle, and Tampa – does it make sense to get a coworking pass, but that is only by a relatively small margin.

It should be noted that the office space cost estimate covers only rent, so the added benefits you often get from a coworking membership like free coffee & beer and high-speed internet aren’t factored into the office space estimate. As a result, while office space may seem like the most cost efficient alternative, if you consider the added benefits of a coworking membership along with the extra costs associated with housing an employee in a traditional office space, coworking is likely going to get you more bang for your buck.

In summary, coworking is revolutionizing the way people are able to work for various companies across the globe. With the rise in remote work and digital-based companies, coworking is a great solution for a relatively low price. If you are in the market for a coworking space, we recommend doing research on what kind of space you need and what is available in your area on sites like Coworker.