By Mark Fairweather.
Photo Credit: Adobe Stock.
South Africa’s office market is showing encouraging signs of recovery. According to the South African Property Owners Association’s (SAPOA) Q2 2026 Office Vacancy Survey, the national office vacancy rate declined to 12%, its lowest level since early 2020.
However, offices are not being used in the same way they were five years ago. Hybrid work has made attendance less predictable and concentrated demand on certain days and in certain parts of a building. An office may be busy in the middle of the week and quiet on a Friday, while meeting rooms are under pressure even as individual desks remain empty. Facilities teams increasingly need to understand how people use a building once they are inside it.
Office recovery meets hybrid reality
MRI Software’s latest South African facilities management research shows that space utilisation and occupant satisfaction are each tracked as performance indicators by 41% of respondents. This indicates that many facilities teams are looking beyond traditional measures and paying closer attention to how people use and experience the workplace.
The next step is to use that information more effectively. Cleaning, inspection and maintenance activities often run to fixed schedules, particularly where compliance or essential asset care is involved. Other services, however, are closely linked to the intensity of use.
Occupancy data can reveal where demand is concentrated and how patterns change during the week. Facilities teams can then adjust services according to actual use instead of relying entirely on historical routines.
This matters when budgets are under pressure. More than six in ten respondents say their FM budgets have remained unchanged or declined over the past three years, while 43% identify ageing equipment as their biggest operational challenge. Understanding which spaces and assets are working hardest can help teams direct attention and investment where they are most urgently needed.
Fixed schedules no longer tell the whole story
Interest in more responsive maintenance is already growing. Only 5% of the South African facilities professionals surveyed have implemented footfall-driven maintenance using IoT sensors, but 33% plan to introduce it and a further 42% are interested.
Respondents expect usage-based maintenance to extend asset life, improve the occupant experience and reduce operating costs. In practice, it could prompt teams to increase cleaning in busy areas, identify wear sooner or reconsider the resources allocated to spaces that receive little use.
This development forms part of a wider move towards proactive maintenance. Predictive maintenance platforms are the leading technology priority among respondents, at 54%, while 43% plan to automate preventative maintenance scheduling within the next 12 to 18 months. Occupancy information strengthens both approaches by showing where day-to-day use is placing the greatest strain on spaces and assets. Its value becomes especially clear when an organisation is growing.
Growth changes the rhythm of an office
Over the last few years, MRI Software’s South African team has grown from 100 to 547 employees across our Cape Town and Johannesburg offices, with a further 103 roles currently being filled. The team supports our local business and the wider global organisation.
We use our own workplace and facilities management solutions to manage this growth alongside hybrid attendance. Our experience shows that the challenge is not always the amount of space available, but whether employees can access the right spaces when they need them.
As the workforce expands, demand can shift quickly between collaborative and quieter work areas. New employees need time in the office to build relationships and understand how the organisation works, while established hybrid teams often attend on similar days. This can place pressure on certain areas even when capacity remains available elsewhere.
Headcount and desk numbers alone cannot reveal these patterns. Occupancy information helps workplace teams identify where demand is building, adjust service schedules and determine whether the workplace needs to change.
South African facilities managers expect this kind of evidence-based decision-making to become increasingly important. Nearly 86% believe smart technologies and automation will shape facilities management over the next five years, while 68% expect data-driven decision-making to become central to the role.
As the office market recovers, occupancy data will offer much more than an attendance measure. It can help facilities teams respond to changing workplace needs before mismatches between space, services and demand become a source of everyday frustration.
Mark Fairweather is the Managing Director, MRI Software Africa.