Aberdeen ranks as the best UK city for fully remote workers seeking a co-working base, scoring 77.8 out of 100 in an analysis of 16 of the country's largest co-working markets. London finished 15th of 16, with a score of just 32.5 — ahead only of Oxford, which managed 16.4.

The research, conducted by co-working space provider Co-Space, carries direct implications for employers designing hybrid work policies and location-based benefits. It suggests that the cities employers often assume will best support remote workers — the major employment centres — may in fact offer the worst combination of cost and practicality, while smaller regional cities could deliver more value for stipends, co-working allowances and geographic flexibility clauses.

Warrington took second place with 70.7, followed by Liverpool on 68.9, Manchester on 68.8 and Nottingham, which rounded out the top five with 67.7. The scores were standardised across the 16 cities and combined using weightings to produce an overall result out of 100.

Co-Space built the ranking around four factors intended to reflect the practical considerations of remote workers: housing affordability, co-working affordability, co-working availability and congestion. London's poor showing despite its dense supply of flexible workspace points to affordability and congestion as the decisive drags on its score.

For HR teams, the findings raise a series of capability and adoption questions. If a company offers a co-working stipend or third-space allowance, is the benefit actually usable at reasonable cost in the cities where employees live? Should relocation or "work from anywhere" policies highlight mid-sized cities where both housing and workspace costs run lower? And do commuting-cost calculations for hybrid attendance policies account for congestion in the largest markets?

William Stokes, chief executive officer and co-founder of Co-Space, said the ranking challenges assumptions about city size. "The interesting thing about this ranking is that it challenges the idea that bigger cities necessarily offer more to remote workers. Cities such as Aberdeen, Warrington and Liverpool are showing that value, convenience and quality of life can be just as important as being close to a major employment centre," he said.

He also framed the choice of workspace as an individual decision about how people structure their working day. "A co-working space can provide structure to the working day, opportunities to meet people, and a clear separation between work and home. That means the best space is ultimately the one that fits how people work, not necessarily the one in the most prestigious location. The right space gives structure, community and separation from home, while still giving the flexibility to work in a way that suits people."

The sample covers 16 UK cities, which limits how far the findings generalise to smaller towns and rural areas where many hybrid employees actually live. Employers weighing workspace benefits may want to test the four factors — housing affordability, co-working affordability, availability and congestion — against their own workforce distribution rather than rely on a national league table.

The data arrives as organisations continue to refine hybrid working arrangements, with co-working memberships increasingly used as a middle ground between full-time office attendance and fully home-based work. As Stokes notes, the fit between the space and the individual worker — not the prestige of the postcode — is what determines whether the benefit works. Employers that benchmark their workspace support against where staff genuinely live, rather than against head office locations, will be better placed to make that flexibility pay off.