I stayed in a sleeping pod in London.

Workers who left London for remote work are under pressure to return to offices in the city, with some opting to stay in Japanese-style sleeping pods for as little as £30 (about $40).

I decided to go to Piccadilly Circus in central London and spend the night in a newly opened capsule hotel, as two of my out-of-town colleagues suggested we stay there.

Zedwell Capsule Hotels, a brand owned by Criterion Capital, opened in September and offers nearly 1,000 capsules measuring 1 meter long, 1 meter wide and 2 meters deep. This is probably the smallest hotel room in London.

Despite being housed in the historic London Pavilion building, originally built as a music hall in 1885, it has a fairly unassuming exterior. The entrance is around the corner from a busy train station and through some black doors.

Hotel prices in central London are staggering, averaging £265 per night in the third quarter of 2025, according to property firm Knight Frank. In comparison, RoomRaccoon analyzed more than 600,000 reservations from 2,000 independent hotels and found that the average daily room rate for hotels across Europe in summer was €125.

Criterion Hotels Director Halima Aziz said the capsule hotel addresses a gap in the market between affordable hostels and affordable accommodation.

“We’ve struck a sweet spot between the two. We’re not a budget hostel, we’re not going to give you a bunk bed in a steel room for £15,” she said.

“When we decided to go into capsules, we actually took inspiration from Asia. And the capsule concept actually came out of Japan as a response to very similar pressures that we face in London.”

In Japan, the first capsule hotel was built in 1979 in the city of Osaka. Its main purpose was to serve as a cheap lodging option for office workers who worked late into the night and would rather drink and socialize outside than spend money on getting home.

This has led to the birth of several capsule-style hotels in New York, from the Sleeping Pods by Karma Central Park to Nap York, a sleeping station with dedicated pods for short naps and overnight stays.

Now that the concept has come to London, I wanted to see for myself what the UK version has to offer.

It’s a Monday evening, and instead of my usual work-from-home routine of getting ready for the office the next day, I’m crawling into my brightly lit sleeping pod.

While getting ready for bed, I lower the garage-like shutters and lock the door from the inside. My head is just a few inches from the ceiling of the pod, which has a dimmer, two clothes hooks, an air purifier, a wide mirror that runs along the head of the capsule, and a charger socket.

I can feel my luggage, my backpack and tote bag, on the edge of the bed and the hem of my coat hanging on a hook, but I’m surprised at how comfortable and cozy the bedding feels.

When you turn off the electricity and the noisy air purifier, you are enveloped in complete darkness and silence. It feels creepy, but you fall asleep quickly because there are no distractions.

Early that morning, I checked into the hotel using one of the four kiosks. As I walked around the hotel, I noticed that the walls were painted black to match the exterior, and I couldn’t see any windows.

I drove up to the first floor and used my key card to access the women’s dormitory. My capsule was one of seven stacked side by side, some of which were only accessible by stairs.

Despite the low initial cost, I learned that I could pay a range of additional fees, from a £10 surcharge for a female-only dorm to £8 for a padlock and a £15 charge for secure luggage storage.

The hotel had an unfinished feel to it. The entrance was covered with scaffolding, and the sounds of excavation could be heard faintly from inside the building.

That’s because it’s “still under construction,” Zedwell general manager Greg Walsh told me. The sounds of excavation were coming from underground, where a large reception area was being built, leading directly to Piccadilly Circus station.

CEO Aziz acknowledged that the building is unfinished, adding that the additional cost for the women’s dormitory is primarily due to upgraded amenities, such as a women-only beauty salon with towels and hair dryers in the pods. However, it is still under construction and currently inaccessible.

“Ultimately, if you want to widen access and not just target the traditional hostel market, you need to respond to people’s needs. People have needs that you wouldn’t normally think of, like laundry and beauty,” she added.

As we explored the building, we found shared toilets and showers, classical music was playing in the room, and a vending machine with snacks, drinks, slippers, and eye masks at the front desk.

Oxford Circus, Leicester Square and Covent Garden were within walking distance, so finding dinner was no problem.

While staying at the hotel, I noticed that I was one of the many professionals working in the building. We spotted several guests arriving wearing suits and ties and carrying briefcases. One chef from Newcastle even said he paid a total of £284 to stay in a hotel for two weeks to work in London.

As remote and flexible working options became the norm during the Covid-19 pandemic, many London office workers moved outside the city where rent and housing were cheaper.

City Hall’s 2021 report says London’s population is likely to have fallen during the pandemic. The number of paid employees in London had plummeted by around 210,000 by November 2020, and the report said flexible working arrangements had made it easier to move out of the city.

The trend continues, with 43% of UK commuters expected to live more than 30 minutes away from work by 2022, reflecting soaring central property prices, according to a report by commercial property firm CBRE that surveyed more than 20,000 people around the world.

Additionally, CBRE revealed that 41% of people around the world plan to move to a more remote location in the same city or another city in the next two years.

But come 2025, remote working proposals are suddenly being recalled as major companies, from HSBC to JPMorgan, Amazon, Salesforce and John Lewis, force a mandatory return to offices in London.

Zedwell’s Aziz said one of the hotel’s core demographic is young professionals and hybrid workers, who use Zedwell as an “urban hub” due to flexible work patterns that require them to come into the office several days a week. Aziz said about 20% of the hotel’s customers are office workers.

“The cost of commuting from city centers such as Oxford and Cambridge, which are not accessible on the London Underground, is quite high,” she says. “Our products are often cheaper than commuting or getting home late at night.”

The mandate to return to the office has left non-urban workers scrambling to find cheap ways to stay in cities without resorting to unattractive options like hostels.

“They traditionally wouldn’t consider a hostel product, but we realized that they would actually consider a capsule hotel because they would have privacy,” Aziz added.

As a Londoner, my commute to the office is usually just over 30 minutes, so this hotel isn’t very convenient, but I think it’s appealing for people who live further away from London.

When I woke up in the morning, I almost forgot I wasn’t at home in bed. After a quick shower, I got ready inside the capsule before stepping out to join the throng of central London commuters.