I don't understand how it can be so expensive, I can rent a serviced office for two people locally for £400/month. This is without the economies of scale of an organisation.
This is the part that makes the least sense to me, too. They talk about cost in terms that don't even take into account the reason for wanting offices.
You don't want offices because of feng shui, you want them because of the positive impact they're going to have on productivity / retention / talent acquisition. And yet their rationalizations rarely include anything but real estate costs.
I just don't get it. If a private office would improve an engineer's productivity by 5%, that's over $1k/month in payroll savings they could put toward their 8x8 square with a door.
Now consider that the actual improvement to productivity vs open offices is probably more like 20%, and that an 8x8 square with a door in commercial zoning isn't even close to 1k/month, and that you're also improving your ability to attract and retain top talent.
But don't worry, we have plenty of room for nap pods and massage chairs.
It'd be about £400/month where I am as well, and I'm guessing you're not in London/Cambridge/Oxford.
Also since you're in the UK don't forget about rates (local property taxes that businesses pay in the UK). Once you're beyond a certain size this tax will jump from £50 a month to over £1000.
In London it's more like 600-700 for good quality places in a co-working space (Wework or similar), up to 1k+ for particularly central locations. But then if you can afford the salaries here, the 300-400/month increase per team member compared to a desk in a co-working space doesn't need to cause a particularly big performance bump to be worth it.
