More than 160,000 full-time employees work in Cebu's IT-BPM sector, out of roughly 396,000 across the Visayas, according to figures presented by industry body CCAP and reported by SunStar Cebu. That single number explains why procurement teams shortlisting Philippine delivery locations keep landing on the same second name after Metro Manila. This guide pulls together what is actually on record for BPO companies in Cebu as of August 2026: employment counts, office stock and rents, and which employers are visibly present or expanding. Every figure links to the page it came from. Where the public record ran out, we say so rather than estimate.
Cebu sits inside a national industry that is still growing
Context first. The Philippine IT-BPM industry closed 2025 with $40 billion in export revenues and roughly 1.9 million jobs, after adding about 80,000 workers during the year, per IBPAP president Jack Madrid as reported by SunStar in January 2026. The industry targets $42 billion and nearly 1.97 million jobs for 2026, and now accounts for over 8 percent of Philippine GDP.
The contact center and BPM segment specifically reached 1.68 million workers in 2025, up 4 percent from 1.62 million, with segment revenue of $33.9 billion, up 6.9 percent year on year, according to CCAP figures reported by The Freeman in June 2026. Those numbers matter for buyers because they counter the assumption that AI adoption is already shrinking Philippine headcount. It is not, at least not yet, and Cebu is one of the hubs absorbing that growth.
Office space, not talent, is the constraint to watch
Cebu's two anchor districts are Cebu IT Park and Cebu Business Park. Colliers data reported by InsiderPH in July 2026 puts their office stock at 445,000 sqm and 599,000 sqm respectively, with vacancy at 13 percent in Cebu IT Park, 12 percent in Cebu Business Park, and 16 percent across Metro Cebu.
Demand has been uneven. Metro Cebu recorded over 96,000 sqm of office transactions in the first nine months of 2025, and Colliers tracked vacancy falling to 14 percent in Q3 2025 from 28 percent in 2022, per The Manila Times. Then the pace cooled: Colliers counted just 9,000 sqm of office deals in Q1 2026, down from 20,000 sqm a year earlier, partly because tight inventory in the two anchor parks left tenants with fewer options.
One honest caveat. Leechiu Property Consultants, working from its own basket of buildings, reported in September 2025 that Cebu IT Park had only 36,000 sqm still available, a 6 percent vacancy rate. Colliers' later figure for the same park is 13 percent. The two consultancies track different building sets on different dates, so treat the range of 6-13 percent as the honest answer rather than picking one number.
What Cebu office space costs in 2026
Leechiu's September 2025 figures, reported by SunStar Cebu, put headline rents in Cebu at P550 to P700 per sqm per month, with fitted offices reaching P900. For comparison, Leechiu quoted P450 to P550 per sqm per month in comparable Luzon hubs, so Cebu now carries a premium over most provincial alternatives.
A per-seat cost figure would require multiplying those rents by a sourced seat density, and none of the consultancy coverage we retrieved this cycle published a Cebu-specific density number. Rather than model one, we are leaving seat cost out. If a broker quotes you a per-seat figure for Cebu, ask which rent and which density assumption sit behind it.
The employers already on the ground
Colliers, via The Manila Times, names Concentrix, EY, Optum and Wipro as major players in Cebu IT Park. Concentrix's own careers site lists two Cebu sites, Cebu IT Park and Cebu JCTR, among its Philippine locations; note that is the company's self-published listing, not an independent count.
Mid-sized operators are expanding too. Select VoiceCom and sister firm Executive Boutique Call Center state on their own site that they are growing to 525 seats at Skyrise 2 in Cebu IT Park, with more than 400 employees, again a self-attested figure. On the inbound side, American-owned Techlog Center Philippines signed a PEZA supplemental agreement on May 21, 2025 for a Cebu facility at Bonifacio Business Park that it expected to open in January 2026 with over 900 jobs. SunStar reports Techlog has invested more than P2.7 billion in the Philippines and employed over 6,800 Filipinos as of 2024.
A call center in Cebu today is therefore rarely a standalone bet. Global CX firms, healthcare KPO, and boutique voice shops share the same two parks, which is exactly what keeps upward pressure on rents.
How buyers should use these numbers
Three practical reads from the data. First, capacity planning: with anchor-park vacancy somewhere between 6 and 13 percent and Q1 2026 take-up at 9,000 sqm, an operator promising you a 500-seat build-out in Cebu IT Park on short notice should be able to name the building. Second, cost: budget against the P550-900 per sqm rent band, not against Manila numbers or against older Cebu quotes. Third, verification: the leading BPOs in Cebu are documentable through PEZA registrations, consultancy reports, and their own site listings, so ask vendors for exactly those documents. Company-by-company registration and headcount checks are what our BPO directory exists for.
Cebu's pitch to enterprise buyers in 2026 is not that it is cheap. It is that it is proven at scale, still hiring into a growing national industry, and constrained enough that the good space and the good operators are both worth booking early.
