Sunshine Coast startups surge as coworking spaces transform regional workforce

Desk bookings at coworking spaces along the Sunshine Coast are up roughly 34 percent compared to the same period last year, according to figures from the Sunshine Coast Innovation Centre, and operators say they have waiting lists for dedicated desks for the first time since the post-pandemic surge of 2022. The numbers tell a story the region's tech community has been feeling for months: the coast is no longer a satellite office for Brisbane, it's becoming a destination in its own right.

The timing matters. Globally, browser privacy debates, AI tool fatigue, and high-profile spyware scandals have pushed a cohort of privacy-conscious tech founders to rethink where they base themselves. At the same time, enterprise employers across Australia are quietly hardening hybrid-work policies, pushing mid-career developers and product managers to ask whether proximity to a CBD is worth the rent. For a growing number of them, Mooloolaba or Maroochydore keeps coming up as the answer.

What's Actually Opening, and Who's Moving In

The Maroochydore City Centre precinct, centred around First Avenue, now anchors the Coast's most concentrated tech cluster. SunCentral Maroochydore, the master developer behind the new CBD, confirmed in June that a third operator, a Brisbane-based flexible workspace group, has signed a lease on 1,200 square metres in Building 4, due to open in October 2026. That joins the already-operational Hub Maroochydore on Duporth Avenue and the Startup Lounge at the Sunshine Coast Innovation Centre in Sippy Downs, which sits adjacent to the University of the Sunshine Coast campus.

The Innovation Centre's current cohort includes 22 resident startups, up from 14 at the start of 2025. Several are working in sectors, cyber security, healthtech, and remote collaboration tools, that have direct commercial relevance to the national conversations playing out right now around digital privacy and distributed workforce management. One Sippy Downs-based team is developing endpoint monitoring software aimed at small businesses trying to manage staff across multiple time zones without the overhead of enterprise-grade security contracts.

Hub Maroochydore, which opened its Duporth Avenue location in late 2024, currently charges $45 per day for a hot desk, $420 per month for a flexi membership, and $680 per month for a dedicated desk, roughly 20 to 25 percent below comparable Brisbane CBD rates. That gap is not lost on founders watching their burn rates.

The Numbers Behind the Shift

National data published by the Property Council of Australia in May 2026 put flexible workspace occupancy across non-capital coastal cities at 81 percent, the highest recorded figure and up from 67 percent in mid-2024. The Sunshine Coast, classified alongside Newcastle and Geelong in that analysis, outperformed the group average. Local real estate agency Place Noosa logged a 19 percent increase in enquiries from interstate buyers identifying as tech workers or remote-first employees in the first quarter of 2026 alone.

The University of the Sunshine Coast's Business School is tracking the trend formally. Its Future of Work Study, launched in February 2026 and due to publish preliminary findings in September, is surveying 400 workers across the Caloundra-to-Noosa corridor about commuting patterns, workspace preferences, and income sources. Early indications from the research team point to a significant proportion of respondents reporting that their primary employer is headquartered outside Queensland.

For anyone considering a move or a membership, the practical calculus is straightforward. Sippy Downs suits founders who want university proximity and the Innovation Centre's structured accelerator programs. Maroochydore works for client-facing professionals who need the optics of a polished CBD setting. And the pipeline keeps growing, SunCentral has flagged at least two further commercial buildings slated for construction before 2028, with flexible workspace components built into both briefs from the start. The waiting lists suggest demand will fill them before the concrete sets.