Two thirds of European office occupiers are planning to relocate offices during the next three years, according to CBRE’s European Office Occupier Sentiment Survey 2026.
The advisory firm says technology and sustainability are reshaping what occupiers need from their offices. Nearly half of the 90 occupiers surveyed anticipate needing multipurpose and reconfigurable layouts, and more than four in 10 are planning for specialised spaces such as AI labs. 38 percent of respondents said they expect to require greater flexibility in general.
AI is helping to drive this shift, although its impact on office footprints is likely to be more nuanced than early expectations suggest, says CBRE. While 52 percent 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. This is because workers typically moving int
