As perks go, the large corner office no longer tops many chief executives’ wish lists. Once a symbol of corporate success, the spacious private office was in decline before the pandemic, and that trend has intensified.
Chief executives are increasingly expected to be “approachable and available ... including in the company corridors”, says Sharon Sands, partner at headhunters Heidrick & Struggles’ London office. “External and internal visibility is important.”
Jon Eaglesham, managing director at architect Barr Gazetas, agrees: “The hierarchy, the gravitas of a corner office, is far less important than it used to be. Leaders are working more among their people.”
In 2015, 12 per cent of white-collar workers had a private office, according to a survey by Leesman, the workplace research group. By 2019 that had dropped to 6 per cent and now is down to 3 per cent. Among senior business leaders it is higher, at 7 per cent. Savills, the property broker, says small financial boutiques and business consultancies retain the highest number of private office allocations, while tech and insurance companies have the fewest.
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Architects say they are increasingly reserving areas of office buildings with the best views for shared spaces to be enjoyed by the whole workforce, rather than the boss’s office. Some companies are bringing the C-suite down from the top to lower floors.
In JPMorgan’s new Park Avenue headquarters in Manhattan, for example, the executive team’s private offices, including chief executive Jamie Dimon’s, are not on the top floors. Instead, this space is part of the bank’s client centre for meetings and entertaining. Overall, the Foster + Partners-designed building, which opened in October, has fewer private offices, and they are located away from the windows. HSBC scrapped the executive floor in its Canary Wharf office during the pandemic.
For hybrid workers, locking yourself away makes no sense, says Peggie Rothe, Leesman’s chief insights and research officer: “Commuting to the office to then sit on your own in a private office, there’s no point because you have that at home.”
Katharine Harle, partner at Dentons, does not miss the private office she lost when the law firm shifted to open plan after the pandemic. “I am often working from home or diving in and out of meetings or out seeing clients and so, to be honest, it would be a waste of space [and] cost.”
The US is more hierarchical when it comes to offices than Europeans, observes Jane Clay, strategy director at architect Gensler, and attitudes also depend on sector and scale. “A start-up CEO will often want to be out on the floor, when it’s a larger business like a bank, [the CEO] will want to have an office.”
Where CEOs have a private office, she says the trend is to make it more approachable, like a “sitting room, less office and off-putting”.
Something as prosaic as the location of an office – or even a desk – can be emotionally fraught. “People can get very het up” about private offices, adds Clay. “Status and its concomitant anxiety does come into play. That is a tribal aspect of office life.”
When Anna Wintour handed over the editorship of Vogue to Chloe Malle, she did not pass on the keys to her office. One British estate agent even took his employer to court – and won – arguing it was “symbolically significant” that he was sitting among junior staff.
Rachel Basha-Franklin, vice-chairwoman of the British Council for Offices London committee, says the best office in the building still commands a certain cachet: “If you’ve had a corner office and are very used to that premium real estate and the status it gives ... it is very difficult to take away. [Bosses] try to be democratic but when it gets to D-Day, they take the corner office ... They want to be seen [as] a leader.”
Eaglesham says he tries to talk to senior leaders about the significance of the corner office. “Is it about status and gravitas, or is it technical, needing it for private work? Is it that they are stuck in the old way?” Rothe underlines the trade-offs: “There’s so many other ways you can give people recognition.”
There are good practical reasons for wanting quiet and privacy.
Simon Fowler, chief executive of Empowering People Group, which provides human resources services, is the only one in his company with a private office. “I would much rather be sitting out with 50 or 60 people. I can sit here and see all my people laughing. It’s not a status thing.” He needs the privacy for calls and meetings, he says. “I’d forever be looking for a meeting room.”
The proliferation of Zoom meetings and sensitivity to noise after working from home has contributed to “everyone [being] up in arms about acoustics”, says Basha-Franklin. Greater understanding of neurodiverse needs is also a factor.
Staff don’t like it. They feel monitored or watched. People feel constrained when they have their senior leaders with them
— Matt Davis
Caroline Pontifex, head of Savills workplace and design, has observed a number of clients within the C-suite retreating to private offices from open-plan spaces because so many colleagues are in online meetings at their desks. “The volume level of meetings has increased approximately three times over the last 10 years,” she says.
As a team leader who works on “very sensitive and confidential investigations [and] client crises”, Harle says “it can be challenging when the office is busy to find a place to do more sensitive calls”.
Today, seniority is more likely to come with the flexibility to work remotely. In the workplace, alternatives to private offices include bookable rooms and soundproofed booths.
Office workers might prefer their boss does not sit among them. Basha-Franklin recalls one open-plan office where the CEO was out with staff and there was “a big radius of empty space” around them. “There can be some particularly unique characters and it’s best they’re in a private office. It can be career-limiting sitting next to the CEO,” she says.
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When Jack Pringle, managing director of architecture firm, Studio Pringle and chairman of the Riba, started designing open-plan layouts 20 years ago, he says “people ... didn’t want bosses to come out of their office as they were afraid of them seeing [what they were doing]. Bosses were equally afraid ... their staff could see what they were doing, ie, bugger all.”
Matt Davis, associate professor of organisational psychology at Leeds University Business School, agrees: “Staff don’t like it. They feel monitored or watched. People feel constrained when they have their senior leaders with them.”
Fowler knows that if he were out on the floor, it would alter the dynamic. “I think I’m approachable [but] it changes how people are with you. Maybe if I were out there all the time, it would be different.”
But James Gilbey, UK chief executive of accountancy firm Forvis Mazars, says he gets “enormous energy” from hot-desking and sitting next to various employees. “I’m sure when I plonk myself down next to a trainee, they realise it’s me, it might not be the best news.” But he says it works “if proactive, as long as you’re inquisitive and [don’t] make them feel they have to entertain the CEO”.
The seating arrangement is essential, he says, to encourage learning by osmosis. “That’s a two-way thing. Our senior people will learn from those who have grown up in a digital era.” Proximity will help junior staff appreciate colleagues are “human beings”. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
