LATEST OFFICE UTILIZATION BENCHMARKS
XY Sense Workplace Utilization Index
Explore the latest global office occupancy benchmarks and space utilization research from XY Sense.
Find out how busy offices really are in the hybrid era and learn how office design needs to evolve to reduce waste and improve employee experience.
See how your office portfolio compares!
Q4 2025 + Q1 2026 DATA - NOW AVAILABLE
How hybrid workplace policies are transforming the world's offices
Welcome to The XY Sense Workplace Utilization Index, a biannual report that summarizes the results and key metrics from the most recent two quarters, providing global office occupancy rates, workplace utilization benchmarks and workplace occupancy trends for real estate and workplace teams.
Our team aggregates and analyzes anonymous space utilization data from XY Sense’s vast global network of enterprise workplace sensors, capturing 200 billion+ data points across 63,000+ workspaces globally. We publish this data to help workplace leaders understand global trends so they can be better informed and formulate strategies for their own companies.
The Q4 2025 + Q1 2026 report offers insights into how workplaces are evolving in 2026. We’ll also delve into how workplace resource utilization rates are changing and how these trends reflect a continually evolving world of work.
So, what happened in global workplaces in the last 6 months?
Download the latest report to find out.
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EXPLORE Q4 2025 + Q1 2026 DATA
Offices no longer on life support, but hardly stable
Global workplace utilization remained resilient through the end of 2025 and into early 2026, holding in the mid-40% range outside of the expected December slowdown. After a brief seasonal dip, utilization rebounded quickly in January and continued climbing through the quarter, reaching 45% by March 2026.
The data points to continued momentum in workplace attendance, with Q1 2026 outperforming the same period in 2025. Offices are no longer in decline, but they are also not returning to pre-pandemic norms. Instead, organizations are settling into a new operating reality shaped by long-term hybrid work behaviors and evolving expectations around how office space is used.
Key findings:
- Global workplace utilization remained steady through late 2025 and early 2026, averaging in the mid-40% range outside of the December slowdown.
- Utilization rebounded quickly in January and climbed to 45% by March 2026.
- Q1 2026 outperformed the same period in 2025, signaling continued gradual strengthening.
- Average global utilization reached 43% in 2025, up significantly from 27% in 2023.
- While offices are seeing renewed activity, utilization still remains below pre-pandemic norms of approximately 60% to 65%, reflecting a lasting shift in workplace behavior.
Tuesday and Wednesday Hold the Core
Tuesday and Wednesday continue to define the core of the office week, reinforcing a stable pattern in how employees are using workplace space globally. In Q1 2026, Tuesday reached 52% utilization while Wednesday followed closely at 51%, maintaining their position as the most consistently occupied days of the week.
At the same time, Monday attendance continues to strengthen, climbing to 41% and gradually narrowing the gap with the midweek peak. Friday, however, remains structurally different. Utilization has held relatively flat at 30%, making it the lowest-utilized day despite meaningful gains compared to previous years.
The data highlights a maturing hybrid work model where attendance is increasingly intentional and coordinated. Employees are aligning their office days around collaboration, meetings, and team presence rather than spreading attendance evenly across the week.
Key findings:
- Tuesday remained the strongest in-office day globally in Q1 2026, reaching 52% utilization, with Wednesday close behind at 51%.
- Monday continued its upward trend, climbing to 41%, while Friday remained the lowest-utilized day at 30%, despite utilization roughly doubling compared to 2023 levels.
- The 22-point gap between Tuesday and Friday highlights the continued imbalance in workplace demand across the week.
A More Stable Global Pattern
Many countries are now operating within a narrow 2 to 3 point range of prior performance, suggesting that hybrid work behaviors have matured into more consistent long-term patterns.
The United Kingdom continues to lead globally, reaching 55% utilization for the reporting period and maintaining a clear advantage over other markets.
North America delivered the strongest year-over-year gains. The United States increased to 35% utilization, up 8 points compared to the same period last year, while Canada climbed to 41%, continuing the strong momentum built throughout 2025.
Key findings:
- Most countries are now operating within a narrow 2 to 3 point range of prior performance, signaling greater stability in workplace utilization patterns.
- The United Kingdom remains the highest-performing market at 55% utilization.
- The United States recorded an 8-point year-over-year increase, continuing its upward momentum.
- Canada reached 41% utilization, up 17 points compared to the same period last year.
- APAC markets remained broadly stable, with only modest seasonal movement across the region.
A Quarter of Desks Still Go Unused (Every day)
Short-duration desk use continues to dominate. Nearly two-thirds of desks (65%) are occupied for less than three hours per day, while only 17% are used for more than five hours. This suggests that desks are increasingly supporting short periods of focused work between meetings, collaboration, and other in-office activities rather than acting as full-day workstations.
At the same time, desk oversupply remains persistent. More than a quarter of desks (25%) go completely unused on a given day, a slight increase from the previous reporting period and one of the most stable trends in the dataset.
Key findings:
- 25% of desks remain completely unused on a given day.
- 65% of desks are occupied for less than three hours per day.
- Only 17% of desks are used for more than five hours per day.
- Desk utilization patterns have remained highly consistent despite increases in overall workplace attendance.
- Offices continue to be configured for higher levels of desk demand than current workplace behavior requires.
Most Meetings Are Short and Clustered Midweek
Meetings with one or two people now account for 68% of all sessions, with single-person “meetings” alone representing nearly 40% of total room usage.
These spaces are increasingly being used for individual video calls, focused work, and one-on-one conversations rather than traditional group meetings. At the same time, larger meetings remain relatively uncommon. When meetings with three to six participants are included, 94% of all meetings involve six or fewer people.
Meeting behavior also reflects broader workplace utilization trends. Most meetings are short in duration and concentrated on peak in-office days, particularly Tuesday and Wednesday, creating high turnover and sustained demand for smaller rooms throughout the workweek.
Key findings:
- Meetings with one or two people account for 68% of all sessions.
- Nearly 40% of meetings involve just one person in the room.
- 94% of all meetings involve six or fewer participants.
- Most meetings are short in duration, creating frequent turnover in meeting spaces.
- The continued dominance of small meetings highlights the need for more small-format spaces, including pods, booths, and focus rooms, to reduce pressure on larger meeting rooms.
Enclosed spaces are utilized 2X more than open formats
Enclosed environments such as meeting rooms, phone booths, pods, and focus spaces consistently outperform more open formats, reflecting how employees are actually working in hybrid environments.
Meeting rooms averaged 56% utilization during the reporting period, while smaller private spaces such as booths and pods reached 52%. Individual focus environments also remained highly utilized at 48%, highlighting the ongoing demand for spaces that support video calls, concentrated work, and smaller hybrid interactions.
In contrast, open collaboration and team breakout areas remained among the lowest-performing space types at 30% and 27% utilization respectively.
Workplace demand continues to concentrate around spaces that provide privacy, focus, and structured collaboration.
Key findings:
- Enclosed spaces continue to see the strongest demand, led by meeting rooms (56%) and phone booths and pods (52%).
- Focus environments averaged 48% utilization, reflecting the ongoing need for quiet work settings within hybrid offices.
- Open collaboration and team breakout spaces remained underutilized at 30% and 27% respectively.
- Demand continues to shift toward spaces that provide privacy, acoustic separation, and reliable support for hybrid work.
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When it comes to our real-time accuracy, seeing is believing!
We’re proud to be the market leader when it comes to both the coverage range and real-time precision of our occupancy sensor solution. See how XY Sense can detect human occupancy in a space and position 100% anonymous ‘X and Y’ coordinates of people to within one foot of accuracy, in real-time. XY Sense also tracks entry and exit counts for spaces like meeting rooms, providing you with real-time people counting insights for each space.
All of this highly accurate real-time data feeds into our workplace insights platform, which aggregates across time and gives teams powerful insights into how much space and what types of space their employees need.
