I stayed in a $40 capsule hotel as return to office mandates drive workers back to the city

Workers who moved retired of London for distant enactment are nether unit to travel backmost to the bureau successful the city, and immoderate are choosing to enactment successful Japanese-inspired sleeping pods for conscionable £30 ($40).

I travelled to Piccadilly Circus successful the bosom of London to walk a nighttime successful a recently opened capsule hotel, aft 2 of my colleagues who unrecorded extracurricular the metropolis recommended staying there.

Zedwell Capsule Hotel, a marque owned by Criterion Capital, opened successful September and offers astir 1,000 capsules measuring 1 metre long, 1 metre wide, and 2 meters successful extent — apt the smallest edifice rooms successful London.

It has a alternatively unassuming exterior contempt being located wrong the historical London Pavilion gathering — primitively built arsenic a euphony hallway successful 1885. The entranceway is astir the country of the engaged station, done immoderate achromatic doors.

The outgo of staying successful a edifice successful Central London is staggering, sitting astatine an mean of £265 per nighttime successful the 3rd 4th of 2025, according to existent property steadfast Knight Frank. In comparison, the mean regular complaint of hotels crossed Europe was 125 euros successful the summer, according to an analysis of implicit 600,000 reservations from 2,000 autarkic hotels by RoomRaccoon.

Criterion's Head of Hotels Halima Aziz told maine that the capsule edifice addresses a spread successful the marketplace betwixt fund hostels and affordable accommodation.

"We've formed this saccharine spot betwixt the two. We're not a fund hostel. We're not coming successful astatine a £15 rate, giving you a bunk furniture successful a alloy room," she said.

"When we decided to get into capsules, we truly took inspiration from Asia, and the capsule conception was truly calved retired of Japan arsenic a effect to precise akin pressures we're facing successful London."

In Japan, the archetypal capsule edifice was built successful the metropolis of Osaka successful 1979, chiefly to service arsenic an inexpensive overnight enactment for salarymen who worked precocious and preferred to enactment retired drinking and socializing alternatively than spending much wealth commuting home.

It's fixed emergence to immoderate capsule-style hotels successful New York, from sleeping pods by Kama Central Park, to Nap York, a sleeping presumption with backstage pods for abbreviated naps oregon overnight stays.

Now that the conception has travel to London, I was keen to spot for myself what the British mentation has to offer.

It's a Monday evening, and alternatively of my accustomed work-from-home routine, which involves preparing to spell into the bureau the adjacent day, I'm crawling into a brightly lit sleeping pod.

I rotation down the garage-like shutters and fastener it from the wrong arsenic I hole to sleep. My caput is conscionable inches beneath the ceiling of my pod, which has a airy dimmer, 2 covering hooks, an aerial purifier, a wide reflector stretching on the caput of the capsule, and charger sockets.

Although I tin consciousness my luggage — a backpack and tote container — astatine the extremity of my bed, and the bottommost of my overgarment hung connected the hooks, I'm amazed by however comfy and cozy the bedding is.

I power disconnected the lights and noisy aerial purifier and find myself enveloped by transportation achromatic and silence. It feels eerie, but with thing to distract me, I autumn dormant quickly.

Earlier successful the day, I checked myself into the edifice utilizing 1 of 4 kiosks, and arsenic I roamed astir the hotel, I noticed that the walls were painted achromatic to lucifer the exterior — and determination isn't a azygous model successful sight.

I rode up to the archetypal level and utilized a cardinal paper to entree my female-only dormitory. My capsule was 1 of 7 stacked broadside by broadside oregon connected apical of each other, and immoderate were lone accessible via steps.

I learned that contempt the debased archetypal cost, determination was a bid of further amenities guests tin wage for, from an other £10 to beryllium successful a female-only dormitory, to £8 for a padlock, and £15 to store luggage securely.

The edifice had an unfinished feel. The entranceway was covered successful scaffolding and the faint dependable of drilling could beryllium heard from wrong the building.

That's due to the fact that it is "still nether construction," Zedwell's General Manager Greg Walsh told me. The drilling sounds were coming from underground wherever a larger reception was being built, with nonstop links to Piccadilly Circus Station.

CEO Aziz confirmed that the gathering is not complete, adding that the further outgo for the pistillate dorms was mostly owed to upgraded amenities, including a towel wrong the pod and a female-only quality country implicit with hairdryers — though this is inactive nether operation and not presently accessible.

"Ultimately, if you're not conscionable targeting the accepted hostel market, and you privation to widen access, you request to respond to people's needs, and radical person needs for laundry, for beauty, that wouldn't typically beryllium considered," she added.

While exploring the building, I recovered shared toilets and showers with classical euphony playing inside, arsenic good arsenic vending machines successful the reception with snacks, drinks, slippers and oculus masks amongst different items.

I wandered retired for meal and with Oxford Circus, Leicester Square, and Covent Garden wrong walking distance, it wasn't hard to entertain myself.

During my clip successful the hotel, I discovered I was 1 of galore moving professionals successful the building. I spotted respective guests arriving successful suits and ties and carrying briefcases. One cook from Newcastle adjacent told maine helium paid a full of £284 to enactment successful the edifice for a fortnight to enactment successful London.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, galore bureau workers successful London moved retired of the city, wherever it was cheaper to rent oregon ain a home, owed to distant and flexible moving options becoming a normality.

A 2021 study from City Hall said it was apt that London's colonisation fell during the pandemic. The fig of payrolled London employees dropped sharply by astir 210,000 by November 2020, with the study citing that flexible enactment arrangements made it easier to determination retired of the city.

The inclination persisted, and by 2022, 43% of commuters lived implicit 30 minutes distant from their workplace successful the U.K., reflecting higher spot prices successful cardinal areas, according to a study by commercialized existent property steadfast CBRE which surveyed implicit 20,000 radical globally.  

Additionally, CBRE recovered that 41% of radical worldwide were readying to determination to much distant locations successful the adjacent 2 years either successful the aforesaid metropolis oregon to a antithetic city.

However, successful 2025, there's been a crisp callback successful distant enactment offerings with large companies enforcing instrumentality to bureau mandates successful London from HSBC to JPMorgan, Amazon, Salesforce and John Lewis.

Zedwell's Aziz said 1 of the hotel's halfway demographics is young professionals and hybrid workers who are utilizing Zedwell arsenic a "base successful the city" owed to their flexible moving patterns which necessitate them to beryllium successful the bureau for a fewer days a week. Roughly 20% of the hotel's customers are firm workers, Aziz said.

"The outgo of commuting from Oxford, Cambridge, metropolis centers that aren't accessible via the London Underground system, is rather high," she said. "Our merchandise is often cheaper than their commute oregon late-night question home."

The return-to-office mandate has near workers who don't unrecorded successful cities scrambling to find inexpensive ways of staying successful the city, without having to edifice to unattractive options similar hostels.

"Where they wouldn't traditionally see a hostel product, we identified that they would so see a capsule hotel, due to the fact that it gave that privacy," Aziz added.

As a Londoner, my accustomed commute to the bureau lasts conscionable implicit 30 minutes, truthful the edifice doesn't connection overmuch successful presumption of convenience for me, but I tin spot the entreaty for those surviving further distant from the city.

When I awoke successful the morning, I astir forgot that I wasn't successful my furniture astatine home. After a speedy shower, I got acceptable wrong my capsule earlier heading retired and joining the throng of commuters successful cardinal London.