The coworking space where people actually talk to each other
The Skiff gives you somewhere to do your best work in Brighton with other humans around.
There are never more than 30 of us coworking at once.
Big desks and monitors for when you need to get your head down, with a separate kitchen and dining room for when you come up for air.
Lunch might be with a developer, an illustrator, and a cartographer.
You can keep your independence without spending quite so much of the week by yourself.
An office full of individuals
Since 2008, The Skiff has been a room full of people doing their own thing. There are no private offices or team desks, so nobody's company gets its own corner.
Some are freelancers, some run companies with staff elsewhere, and some work remotely for employers hundreds of miles away, but they all come here as individuals.
You don't spend your day surrounded by somebody else's team, and nobody gets relegated to the coworking bit because the private offices matter more. Everyone shares the same rooms, and after a while people know your name.
“The Skiff community is about the first thing I mention when someone asks me about the experience of living and working in Brighton. I’ve made lifelong friends here.”
Yann
Skiffmate for 12+ years
Your office, and eventually your clubhouse
Some days you need four uninterrupted hours and a good monitor. Some days you need somebody to ask what you're having for lunch. The Skiff has a room for both.
There is a wall and a door between the places where people work and the place where people eat, make tea and talk to each other, so the work rooms stay quiet and lunch can be as loud as it likes.
The Engine Room
This is where most of the work gets done, at big desks with a large monitor and a proper workstation chair, and room for notebooks, headphones and the lunch you haven't eaten yet. Balancing a laptop on a café table stopped being charming a long time ago.
Put your headphones on and disappear into your work for a few hours. Nobody will mind.
The Skiffmate’s Mess
On the other side of a door is a different sort of room. One big dining table, kitchen, tea and coffee, pastries when somebody brings them in. Leftovers, elaborate salads and emergency supermarket sandwiches at lunchtime.
This is where people stop being the person who sits three desks away and start becoming people you know. It is also where an improbable amount of useful advice gets given without anybody arranging a networking event.
The Sail Loft
Sometimes even 30 people is too many. The Sail Loft is the quieter workspace. There are still calls, but fewer of them and generally quieter ones.
Good for the afternoon when you really need to finish the thing.
The Cabin
A meeting room for up to ten people, with a big screen and Apple TV. Use it for a client meeting, an interview, a presentation or a conversation that shouldn't happen in the middle of the Engine Room.
There's also a podcasting booth when you want better acoustics.
The Phone Booth
Sometimes you need to shut a door. Take private calls in the booth, or use The Cabin when it isn't booked.
If you're on calls most of the day, The Skiff probably isn't the right place for you.
“This is way more than a co-work space. It’s a community. It feels like a clubhouse. My business probably wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t come to The Skiff.”
Caroline
Skiffmate for 10+ years
People who kept turning up
I had been working from home for about a year and I was scarily close to going crazy. One day I realised I hadn't spoken to another human being in 48 hours and that's when I knew I needed to shake things up.
The Skiff's laidback atmosphere and vibrant social scene was exactly what I needed.
Lizzie Davey
Skiffmate since November 2016
When I moved to Brighton for my partner's job, working from home wasn't working for me.
I joined The Skiff because the people are friendly. I hoped it would be a way to start feeling connected to the city, to feel like it was a place I belonged not just a place I slept and went to the shops. The Skiff did all that for me and more.
Jack Garfinkel
Skiffmate since September 2018
I choose The Skiff to work from as the focus is on individual coworkers. Other spaces make most money from private office space. The office users inevitably end up using co-working space as their coffee shop/meeting space.
At The Skiff we have a separate social space we can hang out in when we want a break from deep work.
Matt Oakes
Skiffmate since January 2017
No networking required.
One of the original ideas behind The Skiff was that you ought to be able to meet interesting, enthusiastic people without having to go somewhere and network with them (eww).
It still works. You sit near someone, you eat lunch together and a few months later they know what you do, you know what they do, and occasionally one of you can help the other. Other times you just talk about what you watched last night, and that's fine too.
Built with the people who use it
The Skiff opened in October 2008, and it has been changing ever since, largely because the people who work here keep changing it. It has never paid a dividend to anyone.
Come and see if you'd like it here
A current Skiffmate will show you around. They'll tell you what they like, what they don't, where they normally sit and anything else you'd like to know.
Stay afterwards and work here for the day for free.
If you decide to join, your first month is covered by our money-back guarantee.