We’re in the middle of a remote working revolution. In the UK, though remote working was slowly growing before the pandemic, in 2020 the number of people working from home doubled.
While this rapid rise can be explained by COVID lockdowns, a recent survey my colleagues and I conducted with 2,000 London workers found that six in ten employees still regularly work from home despite restrictions no longer being in place. And most don’t want that to change.
Findings from other parts of the world similarly point to a substantial increase in the number of work days being undertaken from home.
For young professionals, the shift has been particularly significant. Before the pandemic, employees in their 20s were by far the least likely to work from home.
In 2022, 64% of 16 to 24-year-olds we surveyed reported working at home for at least part of the week. This figure is in line with 25 to 49-year-olds (65%) and in fact higher than for people over 50 (48%). Other research also shows that young professionals now engage in hybrid working – dividing their time between their home and their workplace – and may prefer this model to being in the office full time.
US and European data shows that around four in ten jobs can be conducted from home. But this figure may be higher if we consider that some jobs could be at least partly done from home. In particular, jobs in finance and insurance, information and communication, and education are among the most conducive to being performed remotely.
