The demand for standing desks in the UK has grown by more than 20 per cent over the last year as staff awareness in the health and wellbeing benefits of using this type of furniture continues to increase.
Research by TowerEight, construction project and cost management consultancy, shows that the number of businesses looking for standing desks in the UK has seen substantial growth in the last 12 months. The majority of demand has come from banking and financial services sector but price still continues to be a major inhibiting factor. Interestingly, however, this interest still lags behind the US where demand for standing desks has more than tripled in the last year, which suggests that there is still more demand to come.
Sam Addision, workspace lead at TowerEight said, “standing desks were initially dismissed as a curio, but the health evidence now seems indisputably positive and, as a result, corporate demand has really picked up. The move towards more agile working from larger firms also chimes well with standing desk demand; office workers have become much more au fai with seeing the office in a different way and demanding more from the space they occupy every day.”
The research is corroborated by work undertaken by furniture specialists at the Wagstaff Group and Parcour, who have also seen this trend from its corporate clients who are looking to procure sit/stand desks for their workspace as a result of increasing demand from employees.
Mark Shepherd, Wagstaff Group said, “any major UK project we work on now has a big focus on incorporating more sit/stand products together with the need to accommodate more third space break out areas. This is an interesting modification in a client's wish list that we were not seeing three years ago. It is not a trend being driven by creative firms or smaller companies as might be pre-supposed. The wellness agenda and ensuring productivity benefits have become central to occupier strategy.
“Sit/stand desks will quickly become a commodity type product and along with break out areas will take a large amount of the project value in cash.”
Daniel Moodey, Director at Parcour Consulting added, “demand has been driven by organisations looking to maximise the use of their real estate, which has allowed them to reduce their portfolios and realise the subsequent cost savings. As part of the change management process and to secure employee support for these changes, we are seeing and wholesale adoption of agile working practices with a focus on hot desking, desk sharing and mixed use space.”
