The education sector has taken over from technology and has become the leading office lessor in Barcelona in the first quarter of the year with 20,000 m2, 28% of the 73,000 m2 that were rented in the city, according to data from the JLL consultant. The director of the firm in Barcelona, Laura Caballero, highlights that "the sector is driven by the Next Generation funds of the European Union and by the attractiveness of the city, which already has the base of digital professionals that new projects need ”.
According to data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Spain will allocate 3,593 million euros of European funds to the digital transformation of the education system and to develop the digital skills of teachers and students. The possibility of capturing part of these funds has led to the opening of new facilities in Barcelona for Eada (4,150 m2 in the city center), Ilerna (5,600 m2 on Lepanto street), Hipatia (one of the CEAC group brands, with 5,940 m2 in the Europa building in l'Hospitalet de Llobregat), the professional training group Medac (2,700 m2) or Nuclio Digital School (1,500 m2).
“We are finding that international companies that do online training are looking for space in the city. Because although the teachers who will teach the classes will surely telework, the entire technical team that maintains the platform will be based in Barcelona”, Caballero points out. “Barcelona's position as the largest digital and technological hub in southern Europe is highly valued by schools and educational companies, which need to attract technicians here, but also teachers and students”, he points out.
The education sector had represented barely 7% of office hiring in the four previous years (2019-22), far behind technology, which hired an average of 28% of the offices that were rented annually in Barcelona. At the beginning of 2023, this position has been reversed, and technology companies have rented only 9% of the offices.
“The situation in the financial markets has led many technology companies to reduce their workforce and all of them to slow down their growth rate,” Caballero points out. In addition, this is one of the sectors in which teleworking is most widespread, ”he adds. In this way, these companies in many cases are subleasing part of the offices they had contracted. "In general, the rent includes mandatory clauses, so they have to pay the rent even if part of their offices are empty," he says. This formula also allows them to continue in the property if they plan to resume growth soon.
The stoppage of technology companies and the generalization of teleworking or hybrid work formulas, which reduce the need for office space for companies, have led to a drop in the rate of office hiring in Barcelona: in the first quarter it has decreased by 4.6% compared to the average of the last decade and 25% compared to the first quarter of last year.
This situation also occurs at a time when a flood of office buildings that began before the pandemic are coming onto the market: 550,000 m2 according to the consultant's data, a record for new offers, which will be delivered before 2025 and which It will mean increasing the available office space in Barcelona by 7%. Most of these projects will be in the 22@ technological district, with 250,000 m2 (44% of the total), while another 150,000 m2 (28%) correspond to buildings in the city center, in many cases coming from renovations . In the first quarter alone, more than 80,000 m2 of new or refurbished offices have been delivered, more than half of them at 22@.
The departure of new buildings has increased the vacancy rate in Barcelona to 660,000 m2: 8% of the city's offices are waiting for a tenant, with a rate that rises to 15.5% in 22@, but it is only 3.2% in the city center.
"The prospects that there is an excess supply that makes buildings not rent or lower rents has caused many owners to stop the projects they had underway," Caballero acknowledges. Thus, in the last six months, projects that added 150,000 m2 of additional offices have been halted, according to data from the consultancy JLL, especially in the northern area of 22@. "The office market is highly professionalized and managers have preferred to wait for the new offer to be absorbed," he acknowledges.
Rents, for the moment, have remained stable in the best buildings and range between 28 euros/m2/month in the business center (CBD) on Paseo de Gràcia and Diagonal, and 13.75 euros/m2/month in the buildings on the periphery. However, beyond these "facial" values, negotiation proliferates, especially to attract large tenants, with offers of grace months, in which the rent is not paid, and even to make pay for the adaptation works of the interior space to the new tenant.
