India’s office market is not just expanding; it is being redefined in real time. A new report by myHQ finds that 73% of office-related searches in India are now for flexible workspaces. Traditional leasing accounts for fewer than 27%, marking a decisive shift in preference.
Titled “How India Searches for its Office Needs?”, the study positions itself as a first-of-its-kind demand-side analysis. It draws on 387,000 verified workspace enquiries across 30 countries, Google Search Console (GSC) geographic insights, nine years of Google search volume data, and myHQ’s own SEO datasets, combined to map how demand is actually expressed.
From Searching Offices to Searching Outcomes
The most telling change is not just volume, but intent. Searches are becoming sharply use-case driven. Meeting room queries have surged 187% in three years, rising from 34,000 to 98,000 monthly searches. Virtual office searches have grown 99%, while day pass queries are up 20%.
Together, these categories now account for nearly 90% of all coworking search demand.
“Search data is revealing behaviour before it shows up in transactions,” says Utkarsh Kawatra, Co-Founder and CEO, myHQ.
“What stands out here is not just the scale of demand for flexible workspaces but how specific that demand has become.” He adds, “India has stopped searching for just offices — it’s now searching for what it needs the office for.”
Coworking Widens the Gap
The divergence between flexible and traditional formats continues to grow. Coworking-related queries now generate five times the search volume of traditional office spaces. While traditional office searches have grown 48% since 2022, flexible workspace demand has consistently outpaced them in absolute terms.
The longer trend reinforces this shift. Annual coworking searches averaged 57,000 between 2017 and 2019, rose to 69,000 during 2020–2021, and have since climbed to 107,000 annually between 2022 and early 2026, an 88% increase over the pre-pandemic baseline.
Search activity peaked in July 2025 and remains elevated into early 2026.
Managed Offices: Growing, But Still Undersearched
Managed office spaces are gaining traction, though not proportionately reflected in search behaviour. Queries for “managed office space” have grown 778% since 2022, reaching a peak of 13,471 monthly searches in 2024. Yet, in absolute terms, they remain 20 times lower than coworking searches.
The gap points to a disconnect between how workspace products are defined by the industry and how users actually search for them.
Sustainability Moves Up the Funnel
Environmental considerations are now visible at the discovery stage itself. Seven of the ten most-searched office parks in India are green-certified, together accounting for 66.3% of total office park search volume. One green-certified tech park alone records 122,000 monthly searches. Sustainability is no longer a differentiator—it is increasingly a default filter.
A Wider, More Diverse User Base
The data also signals a broader decision-making base. Women account for 24.2% of all workspace enquiries—roughly one in four. Among cities, Bengaluru leads with 27%, followed by Mumbai (26.8%), Coimbatore (26.5%), New Delhi (26.2%), and Hyderabad (25.8%).
Global Demand Finds Its Way to India
International interest, though still a smaller share, is steadily visible. Global searches account for 3% of all India office space queries. Within this segment, the United States leads with 28.9%, followed by the UK (12.8%) and the UAE (11.9%). The drivers include Global Capability Centre expansions, NRI-led company registrations and GST requirements, and return migration by Indian professionals overseas.
Reading the Market Through Behaviour
Taken together, the data offers a clear signal: the office is no longer being searched as a static space. It is being searched as a function—meeting rooms, day offices, virtual addresses—defined by immediate need rather than long-term commitment. The shift is already visible in behaviour. The transactions, as Kawatra suggests, are likely to follow.
