The hub and spoke office model gives a company one central headquarters (the “hub”) and a network of smaller satellite offices (the “spokes”) placed close to where staff actually live. Instead of asking everyone to commute to a single big building, you keep a right-sized centre for the moments that need it and add private-office spokes across the towns and cities your teams call home. For a fuller primer on the space type that makes those spokes work, see our complete guide to private offices.
This model has moved from experiment to mainstream in the UK. Hybrid work is now normal, commutes are back under scrutiny, and firms want to hold onto regional talent without the cost of a headquarters big enough to seat everyone at once. This guide explains what the hub and spoke office model is, why UK companies are adopting it, why private and serviced offices are the natural fit for the spokes, how to set one up, the honest pros and cons, and what it costs.
Wezoo snapshot — UK private & serviced offices
- 300+ private and serviced offices listed across the UK on Wezoo
- Spoke-ready locations in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow
- Monthly “from” prices: representative suites start around £730/month in Manchester and rise for prime central London space
- Top operators: Fora, Bruntwood, Kitt, WeWork, Argyll
What is the hub and spoke office model?
Definition. The hub and spoke office model is a workplace strategy in which a business runs one central office (the hub) alongside several smaller satellite offices (the spokes) distributed near where employees live. The hub anchors culture and big-group work; the spokes cut commutes and give people a professional place to work close to home.
Picture a company with its head office in central Manchester. Under the old plan, every employee travelled in five days a week. Under the hub and spoke office model, the Manchester hub stays for leadership meetings, client visits and all-hands days, but the firm also takes a small private office in Leeds and another in Liverpool. A designer who lives in Leeds now walks fifteen minutes to a desk instead of enduring a daily cross-Pennine trek.
The hub holds the culture. The spokes hold the commute. That trade is the whole idea: keep the shared identity a single building gives you, and remove the friction that a single location imposes on everyone who doesn’t live next to it.
Why UK companies are adopting the hub and spoke office model
Hybrid work created the conditions. More than a quarter of workers in Great Britain — 28% between January and March 2025 — now split their week between home and a workplace, according to the Office for National Statistics. When people no longer need a desk five days a week, a headquarters sized for full attendance sits half-empty and fully paid for.
Three pressures push UK firms toward spokes.
Shorter commutes. Commuting time in Britain has been creeping up for years, and the ONS has found that long journeys weigh most heavily on the people a company most wants to keep. A shorter commute is the cheapest perk you can offer. Put a spoke near a cluster of staff and you hand back hours every week without touching salaries.
Regional talent. Productivity and pay are unevenly spread across the country — output per hour worked in London ran 26.2% above the UK average in 2022, while many capable cities sit below it, per ONS regional productivity data. Spokes let a London-headquartered firm hire in Leeds, Bristol or Glasgow without relocating anyone, tapping skills that a single-city footprint would miss.
A right-sized centre. The flexible-workspace market has matured to make this practical. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) reports growing repurposing of office space and rising interest in flexible formats across the UK. Companies can shrink the hub, shed square footage they no longer fill, and redeploy that budget into a handful of ready-to-use spokes.
Why private offices are the natural fit for the spokes
A spoke has a demanding brief. It needs to be professional enough to host a client, private enough for focused work, available on flexible terms, and ready to use the day you sign — because the whole point is speed and reach, not a two-year fit-out. That brief describes a private or serviced office almost exactly.
A private office (also called a serviced office) is a lockable, furnished suite inside a managed building, with reception, meeting rooms, cleaning, security and internet already handled. You take the space; the operator runs the building. If you’re new to the format, our explainer on what a serviced office is covers the essentials, and our overview of flexible office space puts it in context alongside coworking and day offices.
Three features make private offices the right spoke:
Flexible terms. Where a conventional lease locks you into years and dilapidations, a serviced office runs on a short rolling agreement. That matters when you’re testing whether a Leeds or Bristol cluster justifies a permanent desk — you can scale a spoke up, down or away as headcount shifts.
Ready to use. Furniture, wifi, coffee and cleaning arrive with the keys. A spoke can open in days, so the model reaches a new town at the pace the business needs, not the pace of a builder.
Professional space in many places. The same operators run comparable buildings across the country, which keeps your spokes consistent. On Wezoo, private-office spokes are available through operators including Fora, Bruntwood, Kitt, WeWork and Argyll, in more than a dozen UK cities — enough spread to place a spoke near almost any team cluster.
How to set up a hub and spoke office model
Setting up spokes is a sequence, not a leap. Work through five steps and the network builds itself around your people rather than around a map.
1. Map where your people live. Plot home postcodes and look for clusters. Ten people within a short train ride of Leeds is a spoke waiting to happen; two scattered across the South West probably isn’t yet.
2. Keep or right-size the hub. Decide what the central office is genuinely for — culture days, client hosting, large meetings — and size it for that, not for full daily attendance. Most firms find the hub can shrink once the spokes carry the everyday load.
3. Choose spoke locations. Pick towns and cities within a short commute of each cluster, near a station and local amenities. The test is simple: could someone walk or take one short trip from home and be at a proper desk?
4. Size each spoke. Match desks to the local headcount and leave a modest buffer for growth and visitors. A private office suite for six to ten people suits most spokes; you can take a bigger or smaller one as the cluster proves itself.
5. Connect the network. Standardise the tech, the booking process and the workspace feel so a spoke in Birmingham works the same as one in Edinburgh. One booking tool and one standard keep the experience consistent and the admin light.
When should you choose a spoke over a bigger HQ?
Choose a spoke when your people are geographically spread and a single office can’t sit near all of them. If half your team lives more than an hour from the hub, a spoke near that cluster does more for retention than any amount of headquarters refurbishment. Keep the extra hub capacity instead when your staff are concentrated in one travel-to-work area and rarely work remotely — then one well-placed office already serves them.
Pros and cons of the hub and spoke model
The model earns its place, but it isn’t free of trade-offs. Here’s the honest balance.
| Advantages | Trade-offs to manage |
|---|---|
| Shorter commutes lift retention and wellbeing | More sites means more coordination and admin |
| Access to talent in multiple regions | Culture needs deliberate effort across locations |
| A smaller, cheaper hub to run | Per-desk cost of small spokes can exceed one big lease |
| Scale spokes up or down as needs change | IT and security must be consistent everywhere |
Most trade-offs are manageable. Consistent tooling handles coordination, regular hub days protect culture, and flexible terms mean an under-used spoke can close without penalty. The one genuine cost question is per-desk economics, which is worth doing carefully.
What does a hub and spoke setup cost?
Costs come in two layers: a smaller hub, plus the spokes. The hub usually gets cheaper — you’re paying for less space than a full-attendance headquarters. The spokes are priced as private offices, quoted per month on flexible terms.
On Wezoo, UK private-office suites suited to spokes start from around £730/month for a small suite in Manchester, with representative “from” prices near £1,320/month in Leeds, £1,480/month in Birmingham, £1,640/month in Edinburgh and £2,000/month in Bristol. Prime central London space sits well above that. Figures are indicative starting points — capacity, location and term all move the number, so request a quote for a specific building.
The arithmetic that decides the model is per-desk cost versus commute saved. A spoke rarely undercuts a big single lease on pure rent per desk. It wins on the things that don’t appear on the rent line: fewer resignations, a wider hiring map, and hours of commuting handed back to your team every week.
Ready to build your spoke network across the UK?
Frequently asked questions
What is the hub and spoke office model in simple terms?
It’s a workplace setup with one main office (the hub) and several smaller satellite offices (the spokes) placed near where staff live. The hub is for culture and big-group work; the spokes cut commutes and give people a professional desk close to home.
Is a spoke the same as coworking or a hot desk?
Not quite. A spoke is usually a private or serviced office — a lockable, furnished suite for one company — rather than a shared hot desk. Some firms use coworking memberships for very small or temporary spokes, but a private office gives a team its own permanent, brandable space.
How many spokes should a company have?
As many as your staff clusters justify — no more. Map where people live, and open a spoke only where a real cluster exists within a reasonable commute. Two or three well-placed spokes often cover most of a distributed UK workforce.
Does the hub and spoke model save money?
It can, mainly by shrinking the central office. On pure rent per desk, small spokes are not always cheaper than one large lease. The bigger savings are indirect: better retention, wider hiring and reduced commuting cost for staff.
Which UK cities work well for spokes?
Any city with a professional office market and good transport links. On Wezoo, private-office spokes are available in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow and more, so most regional clusters can be served.
How quickly can a spoke open?
A serviced office spoke can be operational in days rather than months, because the space arrives furnished and connected. That speed is a core reason private offices suit the model — you can reach a new town at the pace the business needs.
Sources
- ONS — Who has access to hybrid work in Great Britain? (2025)
- ONS — Gender differences in commute time and pay
- ONS — Regional labour productivity, UK
- RICS — Repurposing of office space across the UK
