Two Thirds of European Occupiers Plan Office Relocations as Workplace Strategies Evolve, Finds CBRE

Nearly two thirds (65%) of European office occupiers are planning to relocate over the next three years as businesses continue to adapt their workplace strategies, according to CBRE's European Office Occupier Sentiment Survey 2026. 

As these expectations for workplace requirements evolve, occupiers are becoming increasingly selective about the space they occupy. Nine in ten say they would reject a building if it did not meet their amenity requirements. Conversely, these rising expectations are not translating into a greater willingness to pay, with those willing to pay a premium for workplace amenities falling from 54% in 2025, to 48% in 2026. This points to a rising threshold for office viability, while opportunities to differentiate through workplace amenities continue to narrow.

Technology and sustainability are reshaping what occupiers need from their offices, not simply how much space they hold. Nearly half of occupiers anticipate needing multipurpose and reconfigurable layouts (48%), more than four in ten are planning for specialised spaces such as AI labs (43%), and 38% expect to require greater flexibility overall.

AI is helping to drive this shift, although its impact on office footprints is likely to be more nuanced than early expectations suggest. While 52% of occupiers expect AI to reduce headcount and space requirements over time, history suggests that concerns about headcount reductions are often overstated in the early stages of broadly applicable technological change, with workers typically moving into higher-value tasks rather than being displaced. The more enduring implication is that AI raises the quality bar, and the space in demand will need to do more.

At the same time, 45% are targeting net zero by 2030, up from 37% in 2024, creating a compressed timeline for portfolio adaptation and investment decisions. These trends are emerging as the supply of suitable office space tightens. CBRE forecasts that the proportion of European office stock which is less than five years old will fall to 6.8% by 2028, the lowest level in more than a decade. Competition for the best space is likely to intensify further as AI companies, which now account for 3% of European office take-up, increasingly target prime, centrally located buildings.