How Much Office Space Do You Actually Need in Calgary?

How Much Office Space Do You Actually Need in Calgary?

The old rule of thumb, roughly 200-plus square feet per employee, is out of date, and using it will get you a lease that's bigger and more expensive than your team needs. The honest answer for most Calgary tenants today lands closer to 100–175 square feet per employee, and where you land in that range depends less on headcount and more on how your team actually works day to day.

Why the old benchmark stopped working

Pre-2020, 225 square feet per person was a common planning figure across North America, enough for a private or semi-private desk, generous circulation, and a full set of individually-assigned workstations. Hybrid schedules changed that math. The figures below are drawn from JLL and CBRE's North American workplace occupancy research; treat them as a benchmark to sanity-check against, not a Calgary-specific number, and use current CBRE Calgary or Avison Young Calgary figures if you have access to them.

Two 2026 industry benchmarks illustrate the range now in use:

• JLL's 2026 data shows organizations targeting closer to 130–165 square feet per person, with most workstations sized under 50 square feet, and a seat-to-employee ratio around 1.2 people per seat in North America, i.e., not every employee gets a permanently assigned desk.
• CBRE's 2026 data runs a bit higher, around 155–190 square feet per seat, with most organizations running between roughly 1.0 and 1.5 employees per seat.

The gap between those two numbers is the real lesson: "square feet per employee" isn't one fixed number anymore. It depends on your seat-sharing ratio, your mix of desk types, and how much of your team is in the office on a given day, none of which a generic rule of thumb captures.

Start from attendance, not headcount

Before sizing anything, get a real number for how many people are actually in your Calgary office on your busiest typical day, not your total headcount. A 40-person company where 30 people come in Tuesday through Thursday and 15 show up on Mondays and Fridays doesn't need 40 assigned desks; it needs enough seats and rooms to comfortably handle its peak day, plus some margin.

This is also where hot-desking or unassigned seating earns its keep. A 1.2–1.5 person-per-seat ratio (i.e., more people than desks, on the assumption not everyone is in at once) is now common practice rather than an aggressive cost-cutting move, but it only works if your actual in-office attendance supports it. Don't adopt a sharing ratio because it's trendy; adopt it because your attendance data says you can.

Open-plan vs. private offices: what the tradeoff actually is

This decision gets framed as a culture question, but it's really an acoustics and focus-work question, and the research is fairly consistent on the tradeoff:

• Open-plan layouts cost you focus time. Multiple workplace studies have found that self-reported lost productivity from noise and interruption roughly doubles in open-plan offices compared to private offices, and one widely cited study found measurable increases in negative mood and physiological stress in open-plan settings. Employees in open offices also consistently report that noise, not lack of space, is their top complaint.
• Open-plan layouts don't reliably deliver the collaboration payoff they're sold on. Several studies have found that the ease-of-interaction benefit people expect from open layouts is smaller than the drawback of higher noise and lower privacy, and some research suggests open layouts can actually reduce face-to-face collaboration, as people compensate for lost privacy by messaging instead of talking.
• Private offices and enclosed rooms cost more space per person but reduce the "cognitive tax" of constantly filtering background noise and movement, which matters more for roles doing sustained individual work (legal, finance, technical writing) than for roles that are inherently collaborative or client-facing.

The practical takeaway for planning your Calgary space: don't default to fully open or fully private. Most well-planned offices now mix zones, open collaborative area, a bank of enclosed focus rooms or phone booths, and a handful of private offices for roles that need them, sized against how your specific team actually splits its time between focus work and collaboration.

A simple way to plan your number

1. Count peak-day attendance, not total headcount.
2. Decide your seat-sharing ratio based on real attendance data (1:1 if everyone's in most days; 1.2–1.5 people per seat if attendance is genuinely hybrid).
3. Add room for shared space: meeting rooms, focus rooms, a kitchen/breakroom, storage, which typically adds 20–35% on top of raw desk space, depending on how meeting-heavy your team is. This is a general planning heuristic, not an audited Calgary-specific figure, so treat it as a starting point to sanity-check rather than a fixed rule.
4. Multiply by your target square-feet-per-person from the ranges above, adjusted toward the lower end if you're leaning open-plan/hot-desk, toward the higher end if your team needs more enclosed private space.

Common Mistakes

1. Sizing for total headcount instead of peak attendance. This is the single biggest driver of over-leased space in a hybrid-work era, you end up paying full rent on desks that are empty three days a week.

2. Copying a sqft-per-employee number from a national news article without adjusting for your actual work mix. A benchmark built from tech-company hybrid data doesn't map cleanly onto a professional services firm with five-day, client-facing attendance. Use the range as a starting point, not a target.

3. Choosing open-plan purely for cost, without planning acoustic zones. If you go open-plan to save space, budget for enclosed focus rooms or phone booths as part of the same fit-out, otherwise you'll be retrofitting them within a year once the noise complaints start.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many square feet per employee is normal in 2026? Industry benchmarks from JLL and CBRE put the range at roughly 130–190 square feet per person, down substantially from the pre-2020 norm of around 225 square feet, driven mainly by hybrid attendance patterns and shared seating.

Should I size my office around total headcount or attendance? Peak-day attendance, not total headcount, sizing for everyone who could theoretically show up on the same day, when that rarely happens, is the most common way tenants end up with more space (and rent) than they need.

Is open-plan cheaper overall once you account for productivity? It's cheaper per square foot, but the research on lost focus time and noise-driven stress in open-plan settings suggests the total cost isn't purely a real estate line item, it shows up in output too. A mixed layout with enclosed focus space is a middle path many Calgary tenants land on.

Does a hybrid schedule mean I need less space overall? Usually less desk space, if you adopt an honest seat-sharing ratio based on real attendance, but you may need more shared meeting and collaboration space per person, since in-office days tend to cluster around meetings and team time rather than solo desk work.

Next Step

If you're weighing a move or an expansion, see how to think about sizing your next Calgary office when you're growing, or check current rent ranges in our Calgary office costs guide. For a size and layout gut-check specific to your team, reach out.

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This guide reflects general workplace-planning benchmarks as of September 2026, drawn primarily from JLL and CBRE global/North American occupancy research; a Calgary- or Alberta-specific occupancy benchmark from a local brokerage was not available at time of writing. Confirm current figures with a broker before finalizing a lease size.