Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy, from King’s College London, will be leading research into the rise of working from home, considering its long-term consequences and identifying the issues that may arise in terms of equality, prosperity and productivity in the UK and beyond.

Dr Giray Aksoy said: “We hope this research will be able to address critical policy issues around promoting working from home. In particular, there are major issues right now around infrastructure, broadband provision and pricing, regulation of home-based working, taxation of firms and remote employees, and zoning and property regulation.

“These all have huge implications for the extent and ability of employees to work from home. These are complicated issues that require data, analysis and company and policy maker engagement, which this research project can - and already is - providing.”

According to Dr Giray Aksoy, data has already collected from thousands of working-age people across more than a dozen countries, with opinions gathered about working arrangements during the pandemic, personal experiences with working from home, worker preferences and employer plans, attitudes about contagion risks and vaccination.

Early data from respondents suggests that days worked from home rose from five per cent pre-pandemic to more than 50 per cent during the lockdown and look likely to remain above 20 per cent post-pandemic.

The project team received a grant from the King’s Together fund to support the work.