Almost a third of people are still working from home

What does the image show?

The image tracks how much people have reported working from home across the period from before the pandemic to June 2021. The data is grouped into three categories to mirror national reporting, with no working from home, partial or 100%. Half of our sample does not work from home at all, and this has been broadly stable since October 2020. In June 2021 the proportions of people partially working from home were similar to pre-pandemic but 31% of people worked from home all of the time compared with 5% pre-pandemic.

Why is this important?

The key to understanding the impacts on travel demand is how the blend of home working will shift once workplace restrictions are lifted. We can anticipate that levels with no home working will be reduced over pre-pandemic levels. What is less clear is what level will be 100% working from home, and what proportion will be partially working from home. Further to this, how much partial home working is done and what the pattern of this is over the week will make a difference to carbon outcomes. The way in which people organise their working week will also make a difference to the size of the revenue shortfall on public transport given the on-going requirement to service a morning and evening peak of some sort.

Graph: Percentage of people working from home fully, partially or not at all has changed, with 31% still working from home fully in June 2021.