King's College London

Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic upended traditional office life, UK workers are logging an average 1.8 work-from-home days per week, well above the global average of 1.3 days and the highest in Europe. On the global stage, only Canadians average more days a week at home than Brits, with 1.9 work-from-days.

Data for the study was drawn from the Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA) which spans 40 countries and more than 16,000 full-time, university-educated workers. It shows that hybrid work has become the dominant model in advanced economies.

“This isn’t just a post-pandemic hangover—British workers have clearly decided they’re not going back to the old ways,” said Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy, associate professor of economics at King’s College London and Lead Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. “Remote work has moved from being an emergency response to becoming a defining feature of the UK labour market.”

Dr Aksoy, who was recently appointed as a policy advisor to the House of Lords to advise on the implications of remote work for productivity and labour markets, added: “This shift is forcing businesses, policymakers, and city planners to reimagine everything from office space to transport to regional growth.”

The research, co-authored with economists from Stanford University, Princeton, ITAM and the ifo Institute, confirms stark global disparities in remote work patterns. While British and American workers have maintained high levels of working from home, workers in East Asia average fewer than a day a week. In Japan and South Korea, office culture remains dominant.

“Workers in the UK are using remote work not just for convenience, but as a way to rethink their priorities—whether that’s spending time with family, avoiding long commutes, or living further from expensive city centres,” said Dr Aksoy. “It’s transforming everything from fertility decisions to regional mobility.”

The findings suggest that the UK labour market has reached a new equilibrium. Work from home levels, after dipping in 2023, have now stabilised—showing no signs of retreat despite recent corporate return-to-office campaigns.

“Hybrid work is no longer the exception—it’s the expectation,” added Dr Aksoy. “And importantly, we find no strong evidence that remote work comes at the cost of productivity, as many of its sceptics have feared. In fact, for many sectors, flexibility and output can go hand in hand.”

The G-SWA, now in its fourth wave, is the world’s largest cross-country dataset on remote work, tracking actual and preferred work from home patterns across demographics, sectors, and geographies.