International Workplace Group, the company behind brands such as Regus and Spaces, is extending its flexible workspace model into healthcare with the launch of Humanly in the U.K., a sector‑specific offer aimed at wellbeing practitioners. Humanly sits within a broader shift toward specialist serviced space, from barristers’ suites to laboratory hubs, and has credible potential to be profitable despite existing healthcare real estate players — if IWG executes the model with the right pricing and occupancy strategy.
Positioned squarely in the U.K.’s fast‑growing wellbeing sector, Humanly is designed for medical, therapy, beauty and fitness operators who need clinical‑style space without committing to traditional long leases.
The first Humanly location is at Dockside Chatham Maritime in Kent, with roughly 7,700–7,760 sq. ft. configured as private consultation suites, treatment rooms, therapy and physio spaces and gym studios. This format allows solo practitioners and multi‑disciplinary clinics to plug into ready‑made accommodation on flexible terms. This mirrors how IWG has long served office users, but with layouts and services tailored to healthcare and wellness.
Is the Healthcare Niche Viable?Â
Can a flexspace specializing in healthcare work? There seems to be no obvious reason why not.Â
Specialist serviced offices have been proliferating in other professional niches: barristers’ and legal suites that offer shared clerking, secure meeting rooms and proximity to courts; lab‑enabled serviced spaces with high‑spec ventilation, benching and compliance baked in; and highly tailored flexible offices marketed to specific sectors such as finance or creative industries.Â
These concepts trade on combining infrastructure that is too complex or capital‑intensive for individuals to provide alone with the flexibility of a serviced model.
Humanly follows the same logic for health and wellbeing. Instead of generic desks and meeting rooms, the product centers on compliant clinical‑style rooms and studios, plus shared services and amenities that align with the needs of practitioners and their clients.Â
For landlords and developers, it offers a recognizable brand and operating partner in a sector already seeing sustained demand, much as legal and lab‑spec providers have become anchors in their respective niches.
The existence of other healthcare specialist real estate companies suggests that the sector has some potential. For example, Primary Health Properties (PHP) is a U.K. REIT that invests in modern primary healthcare premises, typically let on long, secure leases to GP practices and other government‑backed occupiers. Its model is oriented toward owning freeholds or long leaseholds and collecting predictable rent over many years, with a focus on stability, high occupancy and modest, steady income growth.
The Difference in IWG’s Model
Humanly, by contrast, is an operating‑platform play rather than a long‑lease ownership strategy. IWG’s role is to design, fit out and operate flexible space for multiple smaller healthcare and wellbeing users, charging a service‑inclusive fee rather than locking in a single NHS‑covenanted tenant.Â
In many cases IWG partners with building owners rather than owning the real estate itself, so Humanly is more comparable to serviced laboratories or sector‑specific coworking brands than to PHP’s buy‑and‑hold REIT strategy.
Targeting a defined sector can support higher effective yields if space is configured correctly and occupancy is strong, as seen in specialist lab and legal flexible space where operators can command premiums over generic offices.Â
Healthcare and wellbeing demand in the U.K. has proved relatively resilient and, in PHP’s case, underpins a strategy built on high occupancy and long‑term income growth, which suggests the underlying customer base for space like Humanly’s is robust.
However, sector focus does narrow the pool of potential occupiers, so profitability will depend on IWG’s ability to reach enough practitioners locally, and to price services to reflect fit‑out and regulatory requirements without overshooting what individual operators can pay.Â
Competition is also fragmented: dedicated healthcare property owners such as PHP serve institutional, long‑lease tenants rather than small practitioners, while various regional landlords and niche operators already provide medical and therapy suites. So Humanly’s differentiation will rest on brand, flexibility and quality of service rather than on exclusivity of concept.
Overall, Humanly extends IWG’s platform into a defensible niche where flexible models are still maturing, and if it can replicate the occupancy and partnership metrics it achieves in standard flex offices, the format could generate attractive returns even with a narrower target customer base than generic coworking.
