Most businesses find out they've under-sized their office the hard way: three months into a new lease, when the desks are in and there's nowhere left to put the fourth filing cabinet or the meeting table nobody remembered to plan for.
The short answer to "how much space per person" is 8 to 10 square metres in a modern open-plan office, more if you're running a lot of meeting rooms, breakout zones, or specialist areas like a reception or a server room. But that number moves a lot depending on how your team actually works, and getting it wrong in either direction costs you.
Why this number matters before you sign a lease
Landlords and agents quote space in square metres, and most Melbourne CBD or fringe leases run three to five years. If you size for today's headcount with no room to grow, you're either renegotiating early or squeezing new hires into a space that was never meant to hold them. If you size too generously, you're paying rent, cleaning, and utilities on square metres nobody uses.
We get called in most often at exactly this point — a business has a lease on the table, a headcount forecast, and no real idea whether the floorplan works. Getting the space-per-person number right before you sign saves a second, more expensive fitout six months later.
The standard ranges
For a typical Australian office fitout, these are the numbers we work from:
- Open-plan desks: 8–10 sqm per person, including circulation space (the walkways and clearance around desks, not just the desk footprint)
- Activity-based working (ABW) or hot-desking: 6–8 sqm per person, because you're not building one desk per employee
- Executive or private offices: 12–15 sqm per office
- Meeting rooms: budget roughly 2–2.5 sqm per seat, plus AV and cable management space
- Reception and breakout areas: add 10–15% of total floor area for shared zones that don't map to a headcount at all
These aren't Australian Standard figures — there's no single mandated ratio — but they're what property agents, fitout builders, and workplace strategists use as a starting point across Melbourne and Geelong offices we've worked on.
Where the number goes wrong
Two mistakes show up again and again on the jobs we quote.
The first is sizing for current headcount only. A business with 20 staff signs a lease for exactly 20 desks' worth of space, then hires five people in year two and has nowhere to put them. We always ask for a 12–24 month growth forecast before we start a layout, even a rough one.
The second is ignoring how the team actually works. A business that's mostly remote three days a week doesn't need one desk per person — it needs fewer desks and more shared meeting and collaboration space. We've done fitouts where the client thought they needed 40 desks and, once we mapped actual in-office attendance, ended up with 28 desks and two extra meeting pods for the same headcount. That's a real cost saving on lease size, not just a nicer layout.
A rough worked example
Take a 30-person professional services business planning a standard fitout:
- 30 desks at 9 sqm = 270 sqm
- Two meeting rooms (8 seats, 4 seats) = roughly 30 sqm
- Reception and breakout at 12% of the above = 36 sqm
- Kitchen, storage, comms room = 20–25 sqm
That lands around 360 sqm total, or roughly 12 sqm per person once everything shared is factored in — higher than the raw 8–10 sqm desk figure, which is the number people usually quote first and then get surprised by.
Practical decision framework
Before you commit to a lease size, work through this:
- Confirm current headcount and a realistic 18-24 month growth number, not a best-case one
- Decide your working model — fixed desks, hot-desking, or a hybrid split — because this changes the per-person number more than anything else
- List the shared spaces you actually need: how many meeting rooms, what size, any quiet rooms or phone booths
- Add circulation and shared-zone allowance (10-15% of desk area) rather than assuming the landlord's quoted sqm is all usable floor
- Get a layout drawn against the real number before signing, not after
Local angle
Melbourne CBD lease rates make over-sizing expensive fast, and a lot of the smaller Geelong and regional offices we work with are the opposite problem — they've outgrown a space that felt generous five years ago and didn't notice until the team stopped fitting comfortably. Either way, a proper space plan before you sign, not after, is the difference between one fitout and two.
CTA
If you've got a lease on the table or a headcount forecast that doesn't quite match your current floorplan, we'll run a space plan against the real numbers before you commit to anything. Book a free fitout consultation and we'll tell you honestly whether the space works.
FAQ
How much office space do I need per employee in Australia? Budget 8-10 sqm per person for a standard open-plan desk layout, including walkways and circulation space. Hot-desking or activity-based working can bring that down to 6-8 sqm. Add extra for meeting rooms, reception, and breakout areas — most offices land closer to 10-12 sqm per person once shared space is included.
Is there an Australian Standard for office space per person? No single mandated ratio exists for commercial offices in Australia, unlike some workplace health and safety minimums for specific industries. The 8-10 sqm range is an industry convention used by property agents and fitout builders, not a legal requirement.
Should I size my office for current staff or future growth? Size for a realistic 12-24 month forecast, not just today's headcount. Most leases run three to five years, and re-fitting or renegotiating early because you've outgrown the space costs more than building in modest growth room from the start.
Does hot-desking actually reduce the space I need? Yes, but only if attendance is genuinely lower than headcount. If your team is in the office four to five days a week, hot-desking without enough desks just creates a shortage. Map actual attendance patterns before assuming you can cut desk numbers.
How do I get an accurate space plan before signing a lease? Bring us your floorplan or the space on offer along with your headcount and growth forecast, and we'll map it against a real layout before you commit. It's a lot cheaper to find out the numbers don't work at this stage than after the lease is signed.
