India is currently short of about 20 million sq ft of Grade A+ office space on average every year. Developers say buildings of 500,000-1 million sq ft are in high demand, as they are considered ideal for setting up company headquarters.
GMR, which runs the airports in Delhi and Hyderabad, is getting increasing requests for more office space in Delhi’s Aerocity and Hyderabad. Bharti Realty, which is developing multiple office towers near the Delhi airport, is also seeing strong interest in BTS properties.
“With over 100 large deals (100,000+ sq ft) actively being negotiated and more than 50 signed in Q1 2025 alone, tenants are being forced to pre-lease under-construction spaces or shift to non-core locations, further accelerating demand for BTS options,” said Veera Babu, executive managing director, tenant representation at Cushman & Wakefield. “The intense competition for high-quality, centrally-located office stock is likely to persist well into the next 12–18 months,” he said.
The post-pandemic construction boom initially supported rising office demand. However, the past two years marked a sharp slowdown in new supply across key submarkets with some even failing to make fresh space additions. This widening gap between demand and supply has pushed vacancy in prime micro-markets like Gurugram CBD, Mumbai BKC, ORR Bengaluru, and Madhapur Hyderabad to record low levels of 5%.
About 35% of office buildings delivered in the past three years in the country are currently fully occupied, with another 14% nearing saturation.“The demand for BTS properties has been on the rise as they offer corporations operational and cost efficiencies,” said Peush Jain, MD – commercial leasing and advisory at Anarock Group. “Besides domestic corporations, pent-up demand from GCCs is likely to further fuel this trend across key growth markets in India.”For single-tenant buildings, the most in-demand office space requirement is for 500,000 to 1 million sq ft, as tenants increasingly prefer to keep their identity within a larger ecosystem. For instance, in Delhi NCR, there are currently six large, consolidated requirements for around 1 million sq ft.
India’s office sector ended calendar 2024 with a record 89 million sq ft (MSF) of gross leasing volume (GLV) across the top eight cities. This strong performance was backed by fresh demand from multinationals, optimisation of pre-leased buildings, and increased return-to-office for employees.
One of the key drivers of this momentum was quicker deal closures by both multinationals and domestic firms, signalling rising occupier confidence.
Despite strong demand, supply of Grade-A office buildings struggled to keep pace. The year saw only 45 MSF of new Grade-A completions, resulting in a vacancy rate of 16%—declining 1.8–2 percentage points from 2023.
Global Capability Centres (GCCs) accounted for 27–29% of overall office space demand in 2024, underscoring their growing significance in India’s economy and commercial real estate sector.
Robust demand from multinationals further tightened core office space markets in the major cities last year. However, 2025 is expected to see a recovery in supply, with a substantial share expected in the suburban markets.
