KONE analyzes the evolution of the office market in Europe, which continues to recover in 2026, though in an increasingly complex and selective context. The analysis is based on data from 7,000 elevators in ten major European cities: Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Berlin, and Frankfurt, which together account for more than one billion trips recorded in the last five years.
The figures reveal a 21% growth in office use in 2025 compared with the previous year, although they also show a turning point in the market and a widening gap between European cities. While some are returning to in-person work, such as Madrid, others continue to opt for hybrid models or more flexible arrangements.
Specifically Dublin is the city leading the return to offices with a year-on-year increase of 43% in January 2026, while cities like Barcelona (-3%) register larger declines with gains in only 6 of the 12 months of 2025. As seen in the table, the gap between the cities with the highest and lowest office movement reaches 52 percentage points. Madrid (15%) stands out particularly for its consistency, as well as a strong and sustained growth in the use of its offices, signaling a more evident return to in-person work formats.
Madrid vs Barcelona: two opposite models of office use
In Spain, offices continue to play an essential role within the economic fabric as strategic infrastructure for attracting talent, locating corporate headquarters and developing business services. However, the Spanish market is also undergoing a major transformation marked by space optimization, talent retention, new usage models, and higher demands in terms of efficiency, flexibility, and the employee experience itself.
The movement in Spain’s offices shows a clear divergence between Madrid and Barcelona, with two dynamics that reflect two increasingly differentiated business and occupancy models. On one hand, Madrid is solidifying as one of the cities with the highest office activity. According to KONE’s study, the capital logged rising activity in every month of 2025 and kicked off 2026 with a year-over-year increase of 15% in January, one of the study’s most notable figures.
In contrast, Barcelona shows growth in only 6 of the 12 months of 2025 and a year-over-year decline of 5% in January 2026, marking a significant difference from Madrid’s behavior. This pattern points to an ecosystem more exposed to flexible hybrid models and with less pressure for in-person presence, especially in sectors like tech and startups.
This new scenario points to a more selective office market, in which activity tends to concentrate in certain urban cores with higher dynamism, while other markets adjust their demand. According to KONE, the focus is no longer on whether people will return to the office, but on which cities and which buildings will concentrate that activity: “Today the question is no longer how many people go to the office, but which spaces remain relevant and how they will evolve. In this context, innovation, digitization, and modernization of elevators play a key role in adapting work environments, where internal mobility, waiting times and service continuity are decisive for building efficiency and user satisfaction. As a People Flow® company, we believe the future of offices will be defined by fluid, sustainable, and deeply digital experiences: smarter and more intuitive buildings capable of attracting people and sustaining urban dynamism, redefining how and where demand for workspace concentrates in Europe,” says Giovanni Lorino, CEO of KONE Iberia and Italy.
Facing the sector’s evolution in a landscape shaped by the consolidation of hybrid work and a greater emphasis on flexibility and employee experience, the company asserts that KONE’s 24/7 services show that IoT-connected elevators not only improve uptime and reduce maintenance costs, but also generate real-time operational data for better asset management, space planning, and efficiency.
Plus KONE Remote Services, a solution that enables real-time monitoring of elevator status and safe remote interventions when an issue is detected. While technicians still travel to the building, this technology allows, in certain cases, immediate remote rescue, safely freeing trapped individuals and significantly reducing waiting times. This approach helps minimize the impact of breakdowns and is especially relevant in high-traffic office buildings with a demand for service continuity.
