Leasing transactions across eight tracked office markets held at 66.7 million square feet through the first nine months of 2026, a volume that Knight Frank India's research found virtually unchanged from what those same markets recorded in the comparable stretch of the prior year.

Global Capability Centres expanded their footprint in India's office leasing landscape, with their share of total transaction volume climbing to 41 per cent across the first nine months of CY2026, compared with 37 per cent in the same period of CY2025 and 31 per cent through all of 2024. An industry observer noted that the more telling development lay not in the overall leasing volumes — which held broadly steady — but in how the character of occupier demand had been shifting beneath those headline figures.

Shishir Baijal, Chairman and Managing Director at Knight Frank India, noted that Global Capability Centres are broadening their presence at pace, with flex operators and India-oriented businesses adding their own momentum to overall market activity.

Ranked by leasing volume across the first nine months of CY2026, flex operators claimed the runner-up position among office transaction contributors, with their activity spanning 16.1 million square feet and representing roughly one quarter of all deals completed during that period. Measured against the same stretch of the prior year's 14.1 million square feet, the latest figure reflects a 14 per cent uptick in annual terms.

Bengaluru held the top position among GCC office destinations by transaction volume, with 9.8 million sq ft absorbed across the first nine months of CY2026 — a share that worked out to 36 per cent of all GCC-focused leasing activity recorded within the eight tracked markets. Bengaluru also posted the strongest office leasing result among the eight tracked markets overall, with 16.7 million square feet of transactions recorded through the first nine months of CY2026, representing one in every four square feet of space taken up across that collective footprint.

Placing second across that stretch, Hyderabad recorded office absorption of 13.1 million square feet. Hyderabad posted the strongest transaction volumes among all tracked markets during the July-to-September 2026 period, with deal activity reaching 5.6 million square feet — nearly double the comparable figure recorded a year earlier. Transaction volumes in Bengaluru and Mumbai converged at an identical 2.6 million square feet apiece during the third quarter of calendar year 2026.

The eight urban markets covered by the report's evaluation were Bengaluru, Kolkata, NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad.

Delivery of newly built office space gathered pace, with 48.6 million square feet handed over across the opening three quarters of CY2026, against 32.5 million square feet recorded over the same stretch a year earlier.

Among the eight tracked markets, rents moved upward across the board, with Kolkata posting the sharpest annual rise at 13 per cent, NCR notching 12 per cent, and Hyderabad coming in at 9 per cent. Of all the markets tracked, Ahmedabad posted the most modest expansion at 3 per cent. Baijal noted that climbing rents across every market point to underlying conditions that remain on solid footing as the fourth quarter approaches.

Office-space take-up among outsourced IT providers fell by around a third compared with the same period a year earlier, covering the first nine months of calendar year 2026.