The coworking and flexible office industry has evolved quickly over the past 25 years.

From its ‘business center’ roots in the 1980s, to the introduction of coworking in the mid 2000s, to today’s global spread of mixed-use hybrid workspaces, the market has changed and grown rapidly in a relatively short space of time.

In fact, the Global Coworking Unconference Conference (GCUC) and Office Freedom, a UK-based flexible workspace brokerage, are anticipating coworking spaces in the Asia Pacific region to account for 38% of global coworking spaces, and overtake EMEA and the Americas, by 2021.

Office Freedom CEO Richard Smith said, “The market continues to evolve and thrive. By 2030 up to 30% of office space occupied by the corporate sector is expected to be flexible workspace.

“At the moment well under 10% of the office real estate market is flex. As in any industry, in a cyclical world, there will inevitably be bumps in the road but relatively speaking it’s still very early days for the industry.”