Virtual offices

The growth of Virtual Offices in the UK

The market for virtual offices is growing substantially, the key contributory factors being the increasing awareness of large organisations of the cost of providing desks for employees. The cost is in the region of £20k p.a. per desk and the rapidly increasing number of self-employed individuals. Very few jobs are now 'for life' whether in the public or private sectors, and more and more employees are self-employed either for reasons of choice or necessity. Virtual Offices are becoming a viable option.

Virtual Offices - the statistics

The Office of National Statistics reports that 3.2 million people in the UK now telework and about 250,000 more people are doing so every year.The growth in VOIP and VPNs is creating a trend in the market for enabling a mobile workforce and fuelling a requirement for Virtual offices. Research group Port Topic reported in July 2006 that an estimated 11 million people are using a retailVOIP service. This means that the number of VOIP users has doubled in the last 9 months. These figures don't include software clients such as Skype. By April of 2006 year Skype was downloaded 100 million times with 35 million registered users and 1.2 million people using SkypeOut. The BBC reports that In the UK there are currently 500,000 users of VOIP and the number is expectedto increase to 3 million by the end of 2007.

Virtual Offices - by Hubworking

At Hubworking, we have noticed that businesses opting for virtual offices primarily tend to be in the service sectors. During the early stages of a new business, many entrepreneurs work long hours, and they are often the only staff member, and keeping the costs of running the business has to be controlled carefully, therefore the availability of flexible and affordable workspace is of paramount importance.