Centre for Cities’ latest report gives a detailed picture on what hybrid working looks like in central London.
While the return to the office has been back in the news over the last week, there is still very little information on what this return has looked like and how much of the working week is spent in the office. Centre for Cities ran a survey of central London workers to fill this gap and understand what hybrid working actually means. Here are the key findings.
The results of the survey, which collected 558 responses weighted by industry to make it representative, show that, on average, central London workers spent 2.3 days in the office in April 2023, or 50 per cent of their working week. This is up from what would have been very low numbers during lockdowns (which is corroborated by exits from ‘office’ Tube stations in and around the City of London), but it is only 59 per cent of January 2020 levels.
Two days in the office was the most frequent option but, in total, around half of workers worked three or more days in the office each week (see Figure 1). Tuesdays through to Thursdays were the most popular days, with around three in five workers doing these days. Friday was the least popular, with only a quarter heading into the office on the final day of the working week.
Source: Focaldata/Centre for Cities
Note: Survey conducted between 18 April and 1 May. All respondents (n=558), January 2020 (n=436)
Around 11 per cent of workers whose office is notionally in central London reported working fully remotely. This is just 2 percentage points higher than January 2020. While there was a lot of debate in the early stages of the pandemic that fully remote working would become widespread, this has not come to pass.
Those under 30 were slightly more likely to be in the office, doing an average of 2.5 days. And those who lived outside of Greater London did an average of 2.0 days, compared to 2.4 days for those who lived in the Capital. This is likely to be driven by higher commuting costs faced by the latter, both in terms of time and money.
While hybrid working has risen to prominence since the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, working some days remotely was already a popular option before the pandemic hit. Figure 1 also shows that of those working in London in January 2020, 28 per cent were working a hybrid pattern. Of these workers, the most popular pattern was working one day remotely per week.
The recovery that has happened in office working is quite different to the ‘new normal’ that was being predicted in the early stages of the pandemic. The majority of workers are going into the office at least one day per week, and most are choosing similar days to do so. The office certainly isn’t dead.
What is striking, though, about the TfL data is that after large increases in 2022 – exits from office stations were up 40 per cent between April and November 2022, or 600,000 more weekday tap outs per week – it has plateaued since the turn of the year. This may be in part the result of on-going strikes in transport and education which make it more difficult for people to get into the office. Or it may be that, without further encouragement from employers, we have reached the actual ‘new normal’.
If this is overall bad for productivity – and there certainly aren’t any signs as yet in the data that flexible working has delivered a productivity boost – then this is a problem for London. A further change to office working patterns will require individual companies to mandate that their employees come in more frequently. How much employers currently require people to be in the office currently will be the focus of the next blog in this series.
How will the shift to hybrid working limit London’s future potential and how should policy tackle this?
Three years on from lockdown, central London workers spend on average 2.3 days in the office per week. Will a London running on 59 per cent of January 2020’s office attendance levels be enough to avoid a slump in the UK's long term productivity and prosperity?
The authors of our new report look at hybrid working in London and address several possible future scenarios for work in the Capital.
New report addressing the possible economic risks of businesses adopting hybrid working permanently.
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