What is co-working?

Co-working is a concept that Brad Neuberg, a software engineer from San Francisco, is credited with inventing back in 2005. The idea was to create a space where people could come together in a shared space and create a community feeling, whilst at the same time maintaining their own freedom and independence to work for themselves. You could come to one of these places and find yourself amongst writers, IT contractors, researchers, designers and so much more. As a freelancer you can have the freedom to work from home some of the time, and then use this coworking space when you need a break from it occasionally. The benefits you would gain from using the co-working space is interacting with fellow professionals and this could be great for networking.

If you’re considering diving into the co-working environments where should you go? At the time of writing this during the COVID pandemic, it is very unlikely that you would be able to use a co-working space during lockdown due to regulations, but you can certainly research into them and plan ahead, possibly even sign up for when the restrictions are lifted. Depending on where you are based in the UK there are many different options available. IndyCube has around 30 locations dotted all around Wales and one in London also. You can join up there and get a desk a day for very cheap. In the north of England there are the larger capacity places like WeWork in Manchester and Basecamp in Liverpool. In London, there is a huge presence in Shoreditch of coworking spaces with such places as THECUBE and The Brew. In Scotland, The Melting Pot is one of the first co-working spaces in the UK and home to organisations of all sizes.

Another great resource to check out is DesksNear.Me which has a search engine you can type in any address, or even just a postcode works, and this will throw up any number of locations that provide even hotdesking solutions. There are literally thousands of spaces out there and when the world starts to open up again hopefully in the middle of 2021 it’s a great time to consider using them.