European Coworking Market: Why Jean-Yves Huwart Is Still Bullish

The European coworking market is changing fast, and few people have had a better view of that evolution than Jean-Yves Huwart.

If you want to understand where European coworking has been, where it is going next, and why the industry still has so much room to grow, you talk to Jean-Yves. So that is exactly what we did on the latest episode of the GCUC Podcast.

Jean-Yves is the founder of Coworking Europe, one of the longest-running coworking conferences in the world, and the founder of Social Workplaces, the media and consulting group that has been documenting the future of work in Europe for well over a decade.

He is not an operator. He is a convener, a documentarian, and one of the people who has helped hold the European coworking community together since the very beginning. Based in Brussels, Jean-Yves has had a front-row seat to every wave this industry has ridden: the highs, the lows, the pivots, the comebacks, and the moments when people counted coworking out too soon.

Jean-Yves and Liz Elam have been collaborating for years. The American and European sides of the coworking story have always belonged in the same conversation, and this episode is a bridge between the two.

Why the European Coworking Market Still Feels Exciting

The conversation started where Liz always starts: with the morning routine.

Jean-Yves shared how he begins his day in Belgium, reading the news before getting into email, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and the rest of the noise. It was a small moment, but it set the tone for the conversation: thoughtful, grounded, and very Jean-Yves.

From there, they got into the bigger question. Why, after 16 years, is he still doing this work?

His answer was simple: he is not bored.

After spending 12 years as a business journalist, Jean-Yves has now spent even longer inside the coworking and future-of-work world. The industry keeps changing, the conversations keep evolving, and the days still move fast. That is usually a good sign that the work still matters.

Liz and Jean-Yves also talked about why conferences still matter, especially in a world that keeps getting more digital, more automated, and more disconnected. Bad conferences may be dead, but strong, thoughtful, well-curated conferences are more necessary than ever.

Coworking Europe in Berlin proved that. Last year’s event brought more than 500 attendees, and Jean-Yves shared that while the conference had reached similar numbers before COVID, the market itself is different now. It is more mature, more professional, and more deeply tied to the larger transformation happening across real estate, hybrid work, urban development, and company organization.

For anyone watching the European coworking market, that maturity matters. The conversation is no longer only about desks, Wi-Fi, coffee, and community. It is about how companies use space, how operators build sustainable businesses, and how flexible work becomes part of the larger real estate ecosystem.

Why Paris Matters to the European Coworking Market

This year, Coworking Europe is heading to Paris.

That choice is not random. Paris is one of the markets where the next chapter of flexible work is becoming visible. Jean-Yves pointed to the rise of managed office as one of the most important shifts happening in the city.

Managed office, as he describes it, sits somewhere between traditional coworking and conventional leased office space. It is turnkey, serviced, flexible, and often designed for companies that are too large for a private office inside a coworking space but still want flexibility, scalability, and simplicity.

These companies do not want to spend months negotiating a long lease, buying furniture, managing Wi-Fi, or handling every facility detail themselves. They want space that works from day one.

In Paris, this product has taken off over the last two years. Jean-Yves noted that the rise of managed office has filled a missing link in the market and created a new opportunity for coworking and flex operators, especially those looking for additional revenue streams and more sustainable models.

The Paris market is also dense, compact, and full of companies reconsidering what they actually need from office space. Instead of automatically signing another long-term lease, more companies are starting to ask whether a flexible, serviced model might be a better fit.

That shift is one of the reasons Paris feels so important right now. It is also why Coworking Europe’s return to Paris is such a strong signal for the European coworking market.

Learn more about Coworking Europe in Paris.

Managed Office, Flexible Brokers, and a Maturing Market

One of the most interesting parts of the conversation was the role of brokers across different markets.

Liz noted that in the U.K., traditional commercial brokers still largely run the show. In the U.S., broker utilization has shifted in different ways. But in Europe, Jean-Yves sees a distinct pivot toward specialized, flex-focused brokers.

These intermediaries are building a new kind of expertise. They know the operators. They understand flexible office products and spend time visiting the spaces. Most importantly, they begin with the occupier’s needs instead of forcing every company into a traditional lease path.

This is especially important for scale-up companies. A startup may begin with 10 or 20 people in a coworking space, then grow to 30, 50, 100, or even 200 people. At that stage, they may need something more customized, but they still want the ease, flexibility, and service of coworking.

For Jean-Yves, the rise of flexible brokers is not a small detail. It is a sign of the industry’s maturation.

What Managed Office Means for Operators

Managed office gives operators another way to serve companies that have outgrown small private offices but are not ready, or willing, to return to traditional leases.

That matters because the European coworking market is no longer one-size-fits-all. Operators are serving freelancers, remote workers, startups, scale-ups, enterprise teams, landlords, brokers, and local business communities. The product mix has to evolve with that demand.

Managed office is one way the industry is expanding beyond its early coworking identity while still keeping the flexibility and service that made coworking valuable in the first place.

Why Flexible Brokers Matter

The broker conversation also shows how the market is growing up.

As more companies consider flexible workspace, they need guidance. They need people who understand the product, the operators, the terms, and the difference between coworking, serviced office, managed office, and traditional leases.

That is where specialized flexible brokers can play a meaningful role. They can help companies find the right fit faster and help operators reach occupiers that may never have considered flex before.

AI, Profitability, and the Next Chapter of Flexible Work

Coworking Europe Paris will dig into the topics shaping the next era of the industry.

Managed office will be a major theme, but it will not be the only one.

Jean-Yves shared that AI will be part of the conversation, not only from the perspective of how coworking operators can run their businesses more efficiently, but also from the perspective of how AI is changing the way companies are organized.

If work is being reshaped around focus time, social time, collaboration, automation, and new rhythms of productivity, then workspace design has to respond. The European coworking market is not just responding to where people work. It is responding to how people work, how companies gather, and what kinds of environments actually support performance, connection, and culture.

The rise of hybrid work is also part of this story. Eurofound’s research on telework and hybrid work in Europe points to a continued shift in how work may be organized across the EU in the years ahead. For coworking and flex operators, that shift creates both opportunity and responsibility.

Profitability will also be front and center.

Jean-Yves was clear that the industry needs to stop avoiding the fact that profitability is still an issue in many markets. Demand may be strong, but strong demand does not automatically create sustainable operators.

The industry has to be honest about business models, product positioning, leases, pricing, staffing, and what actually works.

What Europe Is Getting Right

From Jean-Yves’ seat in Brussels, Europe’s diversity is one of its defining traits.

Unlike the U.S. or parts of Asia, Europe does not have one dominant continental champion setting the tone across every market. There are international players, of course, but in many countries, strong local operators still lead the way.

That creates personality. It creates spaces that feel deeply connected to their cities and communities. It also creates a different kind of market, one where local knowledge and local relevance matter.

At the same time, Jean-Yves acknowledged that Europe may still have room to improve when it comes to building standardized, replicable models that can scale more quickly. Some U.S. operators have been stronger at creating repeatable formats and expanding with consistency. The tradeoff is that standardization can sometimes reduce personality, but it can also create more robust businesses.

That tension between local character and scalable strength is one of the big questions for the European coworking market.

Why We Are Still Bullish on Coworking

After a pandemic, a whiplash shift to hybrid work, a difficult rate environment,  and plenty of people writing the obituary for coworking, why are we still bullish?

Because coworking is no longer just about freelancers, desks, Wi-Fi, and community events.

It is now connected to something much bigger.

Coworking sits at the center of hybrid work, flexible real estate, company culture, urban development, startup ecosystems, and the future of how people gather to build. Jean-Yves talked about the convergence between coworking, incubators, startup campuses, biotech spaces, medical hubs, and other service-oriented real estate models.

That convergence matters. It means coworking is becoming more relevant, not less.

Spaces like Station F in Paris show how flexible, service-oriented environments can support startup ecosystems at a major scale. The same patterns are showing up across industries where people need more than a traditional office. They need infrastructure, flexibility, community, services, and access.

That is why the European coworking market still feels exciting. The industry is not shrinking back into a niche. It is expanding into more parts of the economy.

What the Industry Needs to Drop

Jean-Yves was also clear about what the industry needs to stop doing.

It needs to stop lying to itself about profitability.

Coworking cannot only be a beautiful idea. It has to be a sustainable business. Operators need to face the hard questions around leases, margins, product fit, pricing, staffing, and profitability.

The industry also needs better language. Vocabulary is still messy, and terms like coworking, flex, managed office, serviced office, operated office, and fractional office often overlap.

But that is also part of growing up.

A maturing industry has to get more honest, more precise, and more disciplined.

Listen to the Full Conversation

If you are an operator, investor, community builder, broker, or simply someone trying to make sense of where flexible work goes from here, this episode is for you.

The episode is live on the GCUC Podcast wherever you get your shows. Give it a listen, and if it resonates, follow the show so you never miss a conversation about coworking, community, and work.

And if this makes you want to be in the room with Jean-Yves and the rest of the European coworking community, Coworking Europe is heading to Paris this year.

Learn more about Coworking Europe in Paris.

You can also watch the GCUC Podcast on YouTube.