This is how many days the average UK worker works from home
People in the UK are working from home more than almost any other country in the world, a new study shows.
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.
The study shows UK workers are logging an average of 1.8 work-from-home days per week, well above the global average of 1.3 days and the highest in Europe. At a global level, only Canadians average more days a week at home than Brits, with 1.9 work-from-days.
The data is based on the Global Survey of Working Arrangements report, which spans 40 countries and more than 16,000 full-time, university-educated workers. 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.
The report shows that hybrid work has become the dominant model in advanced economies such as the UK.
“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,” he said.
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, said Dr Aksoy.
“Hybrid work is no longer the exception – it’s the expectation,” 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.”
