Remote working statistics 2021

Remote Working Statistics 2021

Remote working allows people to essentially work from anywhere, (not necessarily just from home). But just how prevalent is remote working in 2021? We’ve taken a look in our 2021 round up of UK remote working statistics.

Remote working allows people to essentially work from anywhere, (not necessarily just from home). After the Covid-19 lockdowns and a lot of enforced remote and home working, it would be fair to assume that more of us will continue to work this way in the long term. But does everyone want to? And just how prevalent is remote working in 2021? We’ve taken a look in our 2021 round up of UK remote working statistics.

Our Findings in a Nutshell

Just here for the bullet points? That’s ok! Here are the most notable of our remote working statistics:

  • 36% of people want to work exclusively from home even after Covid is over
  • Given the choice, only 21% of people in the UK would choose to work exclusively from an office after Covid measures have been lifted
  • 35.8% want to work from a combination of both home and office
  • Two thirds of 25 to 34 year olds, however, want to be in the office at least some of the time. This is the only age group for whom “home” isn’t the first choice of permanent working arrangement
  • The number of searches in Google UK for “remote jobs” has increased almost 10-fold in 5 years

You’ll find further information and statistics if you keep on reading.

Do people want to keep working from home after Covid?

We asked 1,000 people in the UK (in January 2021) the following question using Google Surveys:

  • “Where would you rather work (After Covid)?
    • From home
    • From a combination of  workplace and home
    • At an office or other shared place of work
    • Other

7% of respondents gave “other” as an answer.

Most people do not want to go back to the office full time once Covid measures are lifted. 

When asked, “Where would you rather work (after Covid) this is how they answered.

work from home statistics 2021

  • Just over a fifth of people in the UK want to work completely from a shared workplace or office
  • 36% want to work from home long term
  • 35.8% want to work from a combination of both home and the office

In other words, almost 80% of the population would rather not go back to the office full time.

This was pretty consistent across both men and women in our poll and also relatively consistent amongst age groups. But one particular age group was less likely than others to want to continue working from home.

Here is how the 25 – 34s answered:

Work from home statistics young people

In this age group, the biggest answer by quite some way (39% of all responses) was a combination of a workplace and home.

Home polled second with 29% of responses and exclusively from an office wasn’t too far behind (26.5%).

In other words, just about two thirds of those aged 25 – 34 want to work at least some of their week from an office and for over a quarter, that’s their entire week.

This is the only age group for which “home” wasn’t the top answer as a preference for where to work after Covid.

Remote Job Statistics 

But let’s take Covid out of the equation for a moment here. Because in truth, remote working is different from exclusively working at home. And it’s a whole world of different from being forced to be at home consistently for months and trying to work while homeschooling. And coping with all kinds of emotions brought about by the fact that you’re essentially being grounded because of a pandemic.

But I digress.

Remote working has been on the up since way before that pesky pandemic.

When something’s on our mind, we very often head off to Google to find out more about it. So we love data about searches in Google to identify trends and changes.

Over the last 5 years, the number of searches in Google each month in the UK alone has risen incredibly. The table below shows a few keywords relating to remote working jobs and the number of searches each month for that word/phrase in Google UK (data from kwfinder.com).

 

  Remote jobs Work from home jobs
Jan-16 1300 49500
Feb-16 1000 27100
Mar-16 1300 33100
Apr-16 1300 40500
May-16 1300 40500
Jun-16 1300 33100
Jul-16 1600 33100
Aug-16 1600 33100
Sep-16 1900 60500
Oct-16 1900 60500
Nov-16 1900 49500
Dec-16 1300 33100
Jan-17 1900 74000
Feb-17 1900 49500
Mar-17 1900 60500
Apr-17 1900 49500
May-17 2400 49500
Jun-17 2400 49500
Jul-17 2400 49500
Aug-17 2400 49500
Sep-17 2400 60500
Oct-17 2400 60500
Nov-17 2400 60500
Dec-17 1900 40500
Jan-18 2900 74000
Feb-18 2400 60500
Mar-18 2900 60500
Apr-18 2900 49500
May-18 2900 49500
Jun-18 2900 49500
Jul-18 3600 60500
Aug-18 3600 60500
Sep-18 3600 74000
Oct-18 3600 74000
Nov-18 3600 60500
Dec-18 2900 49500
Jan-19 4400 90500
Feb-19 3600 74000
Mar-19 4400 74000
Apr-19 4400 60500
May-19 4400 74000
Jun-19 4400 74000
Jul-19 5400 60500
Aug-19 5400 60500
Sep-19 5400 74000
Oct-19 5400 74000
Nov-19 4400 74000
Dec-19 3600 49500
Jan-20 6600 90500
Feb-20 5400 74000
Mar-20 9900 110000
Apr-20 9900 110000
May-20 9900 110000
Jun-20 12100 110000
Jul-20 14800 110000
Aug-20 14800 90500
Sep-20 14800 110000
Oct-20 14800 110000
Nov-20 12100 90500
Dec-20 9900 74000
Jan-21 22200 135000
Feb-21 18100 90500
Mar-21 14800 90500
Apr-21 14800 74000

In graph form, that looks a bit like this…

remote working statistics

We can clearly see a demand surge over the course of the pandemic. But long before lockdown, thousands of people each month were taking to Google to look for remote or work from home jobs.

Demand for the tools that help

Such significant volumes of people working remotely meant a surge in demand for project management and teleconferencing software. Here are the number of times in an average month over the last 12 that people searches for some of the biggest names in software to help with work from home:

remote working tools demand statistics

How many people worked at home during the pandemic?

For a sizeable chunk of 2020 and for all of 2021 so far, the official Government advice has been to work from home if you can reasonably do so. So it’s going to come as no surprise to see a surge in numbers of those working remotely over this time.

According to ONS data:

  • In April 2020, 46.4% of those who are employed were doing at least some of their work from home
  • For 86% of those people, the work from home element of their work was as the direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic

Find your next remote opportunity

It’s clear there’s a phenomenal shift in the way we work and for some people, WFH or work remotely is going to be a permanent thing.

And if, perhaps, you’re just considering your own remote working future, you can find a whole host of job listings and incredible resources over on Remoters.net, an amazing resource from Aleyda Solis. 

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