Enquirer Consulting Group

Reachable Buyer Map

Prepared for Alan Pepper · Orega · August 2026
Here is the map, as promised. Flexible workspace has two markets that almost never meet: the company that needs desks by a date, and the building owner who needs floors filled. This covers both across the United Kingdom, who signs in each segment, and roughly how many there are. It describes the market rather than your business, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Employers of 10 to 49 people
The largest group on this page and the natural first office decision. Big enough to need a real address and a room of their own, small enough that the whole thing is settled by one or two people in a week. Requirements at this size are often too small to carry an agent fee, which is part of why the band stays underworked by everyone.
Who signs: the founder or managing director, the operations director, the finance director, and the office manager who runs the search.
215,000 to 225,000
UK businesses in this employment band
Employers of 50 to 249 people
Buys floors rather than rooms, and usually while holding a conventional lease somewhere else. This is where flexible space competes with a renewal rather than with another operator, and where a second location gets opened without a property team ever being hired.
Who signs: chief operating officer, HR director, head of workplace or property, finance director.
36,000 to 39,000
UK businesses in this employment band
Employers of 250 people and up
The head office lease is rarely in play, but the regional, project and overflow footprint is, and it moves far more often. Swing space during a refit, a delivery team near a client, a new city tested before anything is signed. Longer to reach and larger when it lands.
Who signs: head of real estate or workplace, regional managing director, procurement lead, and the project sponsor who actually needs the desks.
8,000 to 8,500
UK businesses at 250 employees or more
The regions outside London
The cities where flexible supply is thinner and the choice is usually between one conventional lease and one operator. A different cut of the same market rather than an addition to the bands above: this counts registered businesses of every size, and most of them are too small to take an office at all.
Who signs: the same seats as above, plus the local managing director who owns the P and L for the region.
Roughly 1.05 to 1.1 million
VAT or PAYE registered businesses across the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, the West Midlands, the South West and Scotland; all sizes, so treat this as a pool rather than a target list
Building owners and asset managers
The supply side, and a completely separate sale. Their problem is vacancy, yield and a building that needs an operator rather than a tenant. Stated plainly: ownership of a given building is not published in any single register that can be filtered by vacancy or by appetite, so this group is identified building by building rather than counted.
Who signs: asset manager, head of asset management, investment or fund manager, and the agent instructed by the owner.
No clean public count
built one owner and one building at a time; the difficulty is the reason the segment stays open
Office agents and tenant representatives
The intermediary layer that carries requirements it never advertises. Every active requirement in the market passes across a small number of desks, and which of those desks is currently holding a live brief is not published anywhere.
Who signs: agency partner, tenant representation lead, flexible workspace specialist, and the associate who runs the search.
No public register
reached by firm and by name, one at a time

Where the openings are

1
Two markets, two buyers, and usually one channel. Occupier demand moves on headcount and lease dates. Landlord supply moves on vacancy and yield. In this category the same channel is normally pointed at both, and it tends to keep returning to whichever side spoke last. Two named audiences is a different reach problem, and a solvable one.
2
The 10 to 49 band is the largest and the least worked. Roughly 220,000 UK businesses sit there. They are big enough to need space and small enough that one conversation with a managing director settles it, and they rarely surface through agents because the fee on a small requirement does not justify the search.
3
Space is bought at a moment, not on a cycle. A lease break, a funding round, a headcount jump, a refit, a merger, a first office outside the home city. Those moments are visible from outside if someone is watching several thousand named companies, and invisible if you are waiting for an enquiry to arrive.
4
This is a distribution gap, not a credibility one. The first three bands come to roughly 266,000 UK businesses employing ten or more people. Running the buildings and the service is your discipline. What is missing is the machinery that puts you in front of several thousand named operations, finance and property leaders on a schedule, and tracks what comes back. That is the part we build, and we hand it over when it works.
Built from published United Kingdom government business population statistics for the start of 2024, and from registered business counts for March 2024. Counts are banded deliberately. Businesses are recorded at head office location, so a company with sites in several cities is counted once and appears in one region only. Non-employing businesses are excluded from the employment bands and included in the regional pool, which is why the two cuts do not add together. Building ownership and live office requirements are not covered by any public register and are described rather than counted.
ENQUIRER CONSULTING GROUP
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