Consulting and advisory firms place different demands on an office than most other tenants. The team is rarely all in one place. Consultants spend large parts of the week at client sites, in project rooms or travelling, and that shapes what the office actually needs to do.
We regularly see advisory firms come to us wanting something other than a traditional office with one fixed desk per employee. What they want is a space that is efficient, flexible and well suited to client meetings, rather than a large footprint with a lot of empty desks. Here is what actually pays off.
Space efficiency and fewer desks than employees
Shared desks are no longer the exception, they are the norm. CBRE's global workplace survey for 2026 found that no organisations in the study still target one fixed desk per employee, and that almost half now aim for a sharing ratio of between 1.01 and 1.49 employees per desk. JLL finds much the same in its own 2026 benchmark report, with a global average of 1.3 employees per desk.
Consulting and advisory firms tend to sit at the higher end of that scale. Several workplace studies point to technology and professional-services firms as being among the sectors with the highest desk-sharing rates, largely because staff spend so much of the week at client sites rather than at their own desk.
That does not mean cutting the space to the bone. The point is that an advisory firm rarely needs as many square metres per employee as a business where everyone sits at a fixed desk every day, and the right amount of space depends on how many people are actually present at once, not on total headcount. The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority sets a legal minimum of 6 m² of net workspace per employee, though in practice most offices need 10 to 15 m² of gross area per person once shared amenities are included. We go through this in more detail in how many square metres does your team actually need.
Strong meeting rooms for client meetings
Where office space can be trimmed, meeting rooms should be prioritised. For an advisory firm, the meeting room is often the only part of the office a client ever sees, and it says something about how much the firm is willing to invest in the relationship.
Several studies point to the same conclusion: it is the quality of the meeting rooms, not the size of the office, that determines whether a space actually works for client-facing work. Acoustic privacy is one of the most underrated requirements. If you can make out specific words from the corridor, the soundproofing is not good enough for confidential client conversations. At the same time, several surveys show that small and medium meeting rooms get booked far more often than large conference rooms, and that demand is shifting toward more of the smaller rooms with proper video equipment rather than one big boardroom that sits empty most of the time.
For a consulting or advisory firm, we would generally recommend several solid, normally sized meeting rooms with good acoustics, lighting and video, rather than one large room meant to cover everything.
A central location in Oslo
When much of the working week happens at the client's office, location becomes more important, not less. A central office cuts travel time to and from client meetings, and it signals something about where the firm sees itself in the market.
Office vacancy in Oslo stood at 7.6% at the start of 2026, according to DNB Næringsmegling, slightly above the 2010 to 2025 average. Skøyen remains a solid alternative to the city centre, with a moderate vacancy rate of around 9%. On price, city-centre offices with a good, move-in-ready standard typically range between 3,500 and 4,000 NOK per m² per year, while the very best CBD addresses, in Vika and Bjørvika, can reach up to 6,500 NOK. Service charges normally add a further 400 to 600 NOK per m² on top. Skøyen usually comes in somewhat below city-centre pricing, which can make it a reasonable compromise between cost and proximity to the centre.
Much of the advisory sector is already clustered fairly centrally in Oslo. The large audit and advisory houses tend to sit in the city centre or Bjørvika, strategy and management consultancies are spread between the centre and Vika, and technology consulting has also gained a foothold at Skøyen. The common thread is short travel to the cluster of clients, banks, law firms and other advisers based in the same areas. Browse available offices in the city centre and at Skøyen.
Serviced offices or coworking for smaller firms
For the smallest advisory firms, typically from two to twenty employees, a serviced office or coworking membership often delivers more value than a traditional lease. You get a central address, a professional reception and access to meeting rooms, without committing to a three to five year contract.
UNION, which tracks the Oslo market for flexible office space closely, has previously found that a typical member company in this kind of setup is a small business with around four employees, which fits well with the profile of many smaller advisory firms. Even the large advisory houses use flexible solutions like this to supplement their own office. One concrete example is EY, which, as part of its move to Stortorvet 7, signed an agreement with Spaces (IWG) giving all employees access to meeting rooms and coworking facilities in the building, as well as in Spaces' global network.
This ties back to the point above: when the team is out most of the time anyway, there is little sense in committing to a large, fixed footprint you pay for every month regardless of how many people are actually using it. We go into more detail on the differences between serviced offices, coworking and a traditional office in this guide.
Flexibility, growth and lease length
Many advisory firms grow quickly, and rarely in a straight line. A project team can double overnight, and shrink just as fast once the engagement wraps up. That makes lease length just as important a factor as the price per square metre.
A serviced office or coworking agreement gives short notice periods and the ability to scale up or down as needed, often month to month. A traditional lease, on the other hand, gives full control over your own space and a fixed, predictable cost, but typically requires a three to five year commitment, with rent adjusted annually in line with the consumer price index. For many advisory firms, the answer is a combination: their own office once the company has found a stable core team, and a serviced office or coworking agreement during the growth phase, before it is clear how large the business will actually become.
A few practical tips to finish
Look at your space needs with a couple of years' perspective, not just today's headcount. Weigh total cost, meaning rent plus service charges, rather than the price per square metre in isolation, since service charges can add up to 30% on top of the rent itself. Prioritise the quality and location of meeting rooms over raw square metres, given that is where clients actually meet you. And consider whether a serviced office or coworking agreement could meet the need better than a long lease, particularly if the company is still at a stage where growth is hard to predict.
At Spacefinder, we help consulting and advisory firms map out their needs and find the right options in the market, entirely free of charge for the tenant. Feel free to get in touch for a no-obligation needs assessment.
Sources: CBRE, The Hybrid Reality: Why the Office Is More Important Than Ever (2026). JLL, Global Occupancy Planning Benchmark Report (2026). DNB Næringsmegling, Beskjeden oppgang i kontorledigheten (2026). Spacefinder, How to calculate the total cost of office space in Oslo and How many square metres do your employees need?. UNION, market analysis of flexible office space in Oslo. Schage Eiendom / Malling & Co, coverage of EY's move to Stortorvet 7 (2020).
