Even at a Five-Year High, More Than Half Your Building Is Still Empty: Here's What That Costs You

If you're a facilities manager or building owner, you can probably feel the occupancy gap walking the floors: plenty of empty space, most days. What's harder to answer is exactly where occupancy is lowest, when, and what it's quietly costing you in cleaning, climate control, security and service charge.

Most teams don't have that answer, because most buildings are still run on headcount, floor area and lease size, proxies for usage, not usage itself. Cleaning schedules, HVAC settings and space allocation get built around what a building was meant to hold, not what's actually happening in it day to day.

Occupancy sensors close that gap. Instead of relying on badge swipe data or periodic manual counts, both of which lag reality and miss short visits, overflow, and off-hours use, sensors track real-time occupancy across zones, floors and individual rooms. That gives a continuous, evidence-based view of which areas are genuinely busy, which are consistently underused, and when peak periods actually happen, rather than when a standard 9-to-5 assumption says they should.

What that unlocks in practice: building owners get evidence for lease negotiations, space reconfiguration, and service charge allocation, particularly useful where tenants are paying for space they rarely use. Facilities managers can match cleaning, security and climate control to real usage patterns instead of a fixed schedule, cutting wasted resources without anyone noticing a drop in service.

Aireavu's sensors give you that occupancy picture directly from the building itself, in real time.

So how empty are offices really running right now? UK office occupancy has stabilised above 40% for the first time since Remit Consulting began tracking it in 2021, reaching a new high of 44.1% in late January 2026. Even at the highest occupancy level ever recorded since the pandemic began, more than half the average office still sits empty on a typical day.

See what it would show in your building. Book a consultation with the Aireavu team, we'll talk through the gap between planned and actual use in your space.