Oscar Acoustics Survey: Office Acoustic Design Is Still Being Left Until Too Late

Acoustic design in office environments is still being treated as a finishing touch rather than a structural consideration — and workers are paying for it. A February 2026 survey of 2,000 UK office workers by Oscar Acoustics, published in collaboration with the RIBA Journal, finds that noise is a top driver of workplace dissatisfaction, productivity loss, and the persistent preference for remote work.

Oscar Acoustics, the UK’s leading specialist in architectural acoustic finishes, commissioned the research as part of a broader argument that acoustic inclusion — designing spaces that work for people with hearing differences, sensory sensitivities, and concentration needs — is systematically neglected at the concept stage. By the time a project reaches the specification and fit-out phase, fundamental decisions about geometry, surface materials, and ceiling height have already been locked in, and acousticians are working around constraints that didn’t need to exist.

The pattern is familiar to anyone in the field: hard surfaces are specified for visual appeal and ease of maintenance; open-plan layouts are adopted for flexibility; the resulting acoustic environment — high reverberation, low speech intelligibility, chronic background noise — is discovered after occupation. Retrofitting is expensive, disruptive, and almost always inferior to designing correctly from the start.

For architects and developers, the business case is increasingly clear. Post-occupancy surveys consistently show that acoustic performance ranks among the top predictors of workplace satisfaction. For inclusive design specifically — ensuring offices are usable by people with hearing aids, auditory processing differences, or autism spectrum conditions — acoustic engineering is not a luxury. It is a functional requirement. The gap between that standard and current practice remains wide.

[Read the full piece](https://www.ribaj.com/spec/oscar-acoustics-why-designing-spaces-that-sound-good-matters/)