The recent popularization of remote and hybrid work has provided an additional boon to the already-booming coworking market. Of course, growing numbers of professionals nationally enjoy the benefits of coworking, which range from enhanced productivity to networking opportunities and professional amenities. Accordingly, CoworkingCafe set out to gauge where the market currently stood by identifying how many spaces there were at a national level; their total and average square footage; as well as America’s top coworking operators. Below is a summary of their findings:

Coworking Inventory Increases Tenfold Since 2010

In March 2023, the coworking market encompassed 113.7 million square feet of space, totaling around 1.67% of the national office inventory. The study found that this represented a nearly tenfold increase from 2010, when a JLL study reported 12 million square feet of office space across all coworking offices in the U.S. Naturally, the 113 million square feet were unevenly distributed, with a majority being concentrated in competitive markets, such as New York City and Los Angeles.

Even so, the impressive square footage sum came from a total of 5,612 coworking offices nationally as of March 2023. As you might expect, Manhattan, N.Y., had the largest number of coworking locations with 290, followed by Los Angeles’ 265 locations and Washington, D.C.’s 243. Two other markets also had more than 200 coworking locations: Chicago with 235 and Dallas-Fort Worth with 225.

Meanwhile, when analyzing prices, the national median average for an open-space hot desk stood at $134 per month. For comparison, the median price for a dedicated desk membership was $326 per month, while the median price for virtual offices was $94. Here again, markets such as Manhattan and San Francisco (which feature high volumes of tech workers and other professionals who are more likely to buy coworking memberships) were the most expensive: An open workspace in Manhattan cost $300 per month or $357 in San Francisco.

Manhattan Concentrates 13.6MSF of Coworking Space, Twice as Much as Next-Largest Market

When it came to sheer numbers of coworking locations, Manhattan and Los Angeles were almost evenly matched. However, Manhattan’s flex spaces added up to nearly 13.6 million square feet of space, while Los Angeles’ total stood at 6.8 million square feet.

This underscored the fact that Manhattan coworking spaces were considerably larger, on average, than those in any other market nationally. Specifically, the average flex space in Manhattan spanned 46,800 square feet compared to LA’s average of 25,500 and the national average of 20,200. Conversely, among the 25 markets included in the study, the smallest coworking offices, on average, could be found in San Diego. The average shared space here was just more than 16,200 square feet.

The next-largest markets in terms of coworking square footage were Chicago with 6.24 million square feet; Washington, D.C. with 6.18 million; and Boston with 4.55 million.

Finally, when looking at the largest coworking operators in the U.S., Regus and Industrious operated more than half of their total inventories within the 25 largest markets in the U.S. At the same time, only 28% of Spaces’ portfolio was situated in these markets, while WeWork stood at the opposite pole: Out of 240 U.S. locations run by WeWork, 198 were located in the 25 largest markets.

For more details, check out CoworkingCafe’s full study on the state of the coworking industry. If you’re looking for a membership yourself, you can browse some of the most popular and amenity-rich spaces in your city or across any major U.S. coworking market. You can filter properties by location or price range and contact operators directly from the listing if you’ve made your choice: