Lessons from Financial Workplace London 2026: beyond hybrid, towards experience

WORKTECH’s Financial Workplace London was hosted by M&G Investments on the 24^th March 2026. Of the almost 30 speakers presenting at the event, one message came through with unusual consistency: the financial workplace is no longer being designed as a static environment for work, but as a dynamic system shaping behaviour, performance and experience.

Bringing together leaders from financial services, real estate and workplace strategy, the event revealed that the financial industry is moving beyond hybrid policy debates into a more complex phase where the challenge is not where people work, but how workplaces create value. As in-office attendance stabilises, the focus has pivoted to spaces that have the biggest impact on human performance.

Across the program, five themes emerged that signal where the financial workplace is heading next.

The workplace is extending beyond the building

In a session on re-engineering the City of London, Kate Hart, CEO of Eastern City BID, shifted the focus away from the office itself to the wider environment around it. The challenge is no longer just getting people into buildings, but giving them a reason to come into the City at all. This challenge has created an opportunity for corporate organisations to partner with city initiatives to create wider urban spaces that are activated at all hours of the day and week.

Initiatives around live events, cultural programming, wellness and public realm improvements are now positioned as part of a deliberate strategy to actively shape how long people stay and how they engage with the City. The data shared pointed to measurable impact, with significant growth in time spent in the City across both weekdays and weekends.

The implication is that the workplace can’t compete as an isolated building. Its performance is tied to what happens beyond its walls and to how effectively the surrounding environment competes with home and other alternatives.

‘We’re evolving not just the buildings, but the bits in between.’
– Kate Hart, CEO, Eastern City BID

Experience is overtaking efficiency as the driver of attendance

Despite financial firms publicly declaring stricter return-to-office policies, the event highlighted that mandates alone don’t bring people into the office. Instead, attendance is increasingly shaped by the quality of experience on offer.

This was particularly clear in the case study from Standard Chartered, where Surasen Naidu, Managing Director and Head of CRES EMEA, described the shift from a desk-led environment to one centred on interaction, hospitality and social space. The redesign of the firms’ 1 Basinghall Avenue office, in partnership with M Moser Associates, reduced desk provision while significantly increasing collaborative and social areas, alongside the introduction of experience-led features such as a café, terrace and event spaces.

Attendance rose from around 23% to nearly 60%, with high levels of utilisation following. The key point was that the workplace became somewhere people actively chose to use spotlighting that efficiency still matters, but it is no longer enough on its own. The workplace has to compete – and experience is what differentiates it.

Experience has become a central pillar for financial firms attracting employees back to the office, with futurist, author, and CEO of UnWork, Phillip Ross sharing innovative projects across the world from JP Morgan Chase’s new office at 270 Park in Manhattan to Macquarie’s new state-of-the-art workplace in Sydney. In his presentation, he noted that a central themes across these spaces is that the firms weren’t afraid to be ‘generous with the space’ that they gave to amenities and services to curate better overall experiences for employees.

‘Experience is what drives attendance – not space allocation.’
– Surasen Naidu, MD & Head of CRES EMEA, Standard Chartered Bank

Data maturity is the real challenge

In the session from M&G Investments, Martin Shaw, Head of CRE Operations, and Arthur Olney, Head of Workplace Data Analytics and Insight, addressed the growing challenge that organisations now have more workplace data than ever, but far less clarity on how to use it. ‘We are data rich, but insights poor’, as one speaker described.

Hybrid working has exposed this gap. Questions around why people come in, how space is actually used and where to invest can’t be answered through static reports. As Shaw described, the issue is not data availability, but the capability to connect, interpret and act on it.

M&G’s approach has focused on building that capability – integrating fragmented systems, reducing manual reporting and creating a more consistent, trusted view of workplace performance. This has enabled faster, more evidence-based decision-making, shifting conversations away from assumptions and towards operational insight.

The value of workplace data is its ability to inform action. Without that shift, more data simply adds complexity.

Real estate is a strategic enabler

In a fireside chat with James Davies, Workplace Strategy Director at Lloyds Banking Group, a more structural shift came through. Workplace is now treated as a lever for talent, experience and organisational performance, not a cost to manage.

Davies described how starting from a low baseline with legacy estates shaped by years of mergers, acquisitions and cost control has provided a unique opportunity to reposition real estate as a strategic asset. The challenge was not to rebuild from scratch, but to rethink how that estate could better support the workforce. This has led to a more targeted approach, focusing investment on key existing locations and developing ‘destination offices’ that reflect the brand and attract people in.

Importantly, the strategy is not driven by uniform design, but by experience and optionality – creating a range of environments that support different needs and ways of working. Real estate is moving from operational backdrop to active part of how organisations compete for talent and performance.

‘Real estate had been seen as a necessary evil – a cost to manage. The strategy now starts with people.’
– James Davies, Workplace Strategy Director, Lloyds Banking Group

The conference, which was attended by 150 workplace leaders across the financial sector, highlighted that workplace strategy has moved on from hybrid mandates and policy debates. The focus now is on what the workplace actually delivers. Not just in terms of space or attendance, but in how it attracts people in, supports how they work and holds its value against other options.

This gives the workplace a more demanding role. It sits between real estate, experience and operations – and is expected to perform across all three.