Two-thirds of the people who come on a tour ask this, so here is how we answer it.
The money
A hot desk is £185 a month. A dedicated desk is £295. The gap is £110, or £1,320 a year — roughly what a decent monitor and chair cost, once.
The real question
It is not price. It is whether you want to leave things out.
On a hot desk you arrive, pick a free desk, and clear it at the end of the day. Everything you brought goes in a locker or your bag. That is genuinely fine for a laptop and a notebook. It stops being fine the moment you want a second screen, a keyboard you like, a drawing tablet, or a shelf of reference books.
On a dedicated desk, the desk is yours. The monitor stays plugged in. The drawer locks. Nobody has sat in your chair.
The other real question
Hours. Hot desking runs 8am to 8pm on weekdays. Dedicated desks come with a key fob that works at any hour, including Sunday. If your work has deadlines that land at eleven at night, that alone decides it.
What we see people do
Most people start on a hot desk and stay there for four to six months. About half then move up, usually within a fortnight of buying a monitor. A smaller number move the other way, when a contract ends and two days a week is enough.
Moving between plans takes a day and costs nothing. We do not charge to change your mind, and we do not ask why.
The one case where it is obvious
If there are two or more of you and you want to sit together, skip both and look at an office. Two dedicated desks is £590. The smallest private office starts at £425 a desk, so £850 for two — more, but with a door, a thermostat and eight free meeting-room hours a month. For a team of four the maths tips the other way and the office usually wins.
