Thought of the Week
Regional variation, daily volatility: Global office utilisation trends
February 6, 2025 4 Minute Read
Over the past year, average office attendance across the five-day working week has increased globally from 36% to 39%. While these figures, from CBRE’s Occupancy Management team, show only a marginal increase, there are large regional variations; APAC led the way at 50% occupation in 2024, followed by EMEA (46%), and the Americas (33%). But in growth terms, EMEA saw the greatest progress, with average utilisation rising by 8%, compared to +3% in APAC, and +2% in the Americas.
In contrast to average utilisation rates, peak utilisation represents the occupation of offices on the busiest day of the week. Globally, peak utilisation stood at 64% in 2024, up 11% from the previous year. The EMEA region saw an increase in its peak utilisation figure larger than any other region, rising year-on-year from 62% to 81% in 2024. Healthy increases in peak utilisation were also seen in APAC and the Americas during the year. Within APAC, peak utilisation rose to 76%, from 64%. In the Americas, peak utilisation of 56% represented a level ten percentage points higher than in 2023.
The figures point to a number of clear trends:
- Office utilisation is improving across all global regions
- The gap between average utilisation and peak utilisation is large and has grown in all regions
- The gap between average utilisation and peak utilisation in EMEA is especially large
It is also worth noting that CBRE’s Occupancy Management data is based on attendance at the offices of CBRE’s largest clients who typically occupy several millions of square feet globally. Office occupation levels for smaller companies tend to be higher than for larger companies.
The increase in both average and peak utilisation on a global level is in-line with expectations for a growing number of large companies to issue office attendance mandates; indicated by our Office Occupier Sentiment Survey, which is also heavily weighted towards large, multijurisdictional companies. However, looking specifically at EMEA, its average utilisation of 46% remains significantly lower than the pre-COVID benchmark (63%). Even if it were to continue to grow at the 2024 rate, the average occupancy would still not meet the pre-COVID benchmark before the end of 2026.
Still, the difference between the average and the peak utilisation rates indicates a shift in how occupiers are using their office space, rendering comparisons to pre-COVID levels futile, especially in EMEA and the Americas. In those two regions, on peak days, utilisation is significantly higher than the five-day average (81% vs 46% for EMEA and 56% vs 33% for the Americas). The day-by-day breakdown is not available, but this implies that if some days in the week see very high office utilisation, it is extremely low on others, most likely Mondays and Fridays. APAC office usage is much more evenly spread across the week than in EMEA or the Americas, and as a result, peak utilisation figures there are much closer to the five-day average.
In EMEA, peak office utilisation has already surpassed the pre-COVID benchmark of 80%, whereas the Americas are still trailing behind. Their return to office has clearly lagged the rest of the world, but the rate of increase in the last year is encouraging. It is likely that peak utilisation in the Americas will progressively revert towards pre-COVID levels as further return to work mandates are implemented in 2025.
The question for EMEA is whether the gaps in office use will narrow. In other words – will office utilisation increase markedly? For now, Fridays (and to a lesser extent, Mondays) continue to be notably quiet, so we are unlikely to see much change in 2025. But what happens beyond that remains to be seen. Watch this space.
