Which cities are best equipped for socially distant working?
Social distancing in the workplace will be easier in northern cities, where workers have more space than those in the south.
Social distancing in the workplace will be easier in northern cities, where workers have more space than those in the south.
Boris Johnson’s most recent speech encouraged people who cannot work from home to get back to work. But this has raised questions about how safe it is to do so. As lockdown eases these questions will become ever louder. So which cities are likely to have the biggest challenges when it comes to social distancing at work?
When looking at commercial space (industrial and office space combined), we see that cities in the South East have generally less workspace per worker than cities in the North. While a worker in Oxford has on average around 21 square meters of workspace available to them, in Blackburn a worker has almost four times more space (71sqm).
Figure 1: Commercial space per worker
Source: VOA, 2018; BRES, 2018
When looking at the two types of commercial space separately, we see similar patterns. Both office and factory space per worker is higher in cities and large towns in the North than in the South (see Figure 2). Cities like London, Reading and Cambridge are both in the bottom ten places with the least office and factory space per person, with Hull, Middlesbrough and Blackburn all in the top 10 having the most office and factory space per person. So, while in London an office worker has on average 16 sqm and a factory worker 40 sqm workspace, for a worker in Hull, these are 30 sqm and 75 sqm respectively – double the amount.
Figure 2 industrial space per factory worker and office space per office worker
Source: VOA, 2018; BRES, 2018
This situation is likely to be particularly acute in economically strong city centres as jobs cluster together to gain from the benefits that density brings. The City of London, for example is characterized by its large skyscrapers which help make it the place with the highest job density in the country. The job density in London’s city centre is around 540 workers per hectare while the average of UK city centres is 124.
In addition to adapting working environments to meet social distancing requirements, these successful centres also have the big problem of getting workers to their offices. Commuting by public transport is higher into city centres than to other workplaces generally. But it is highest into dense city centres. In Leeds, 38 per cent of city centre workers commute by public transport. In Manchester it’s 46 per cent. And in London it’s 80 per cent. And while walking and cycling may address some of this, it will only go a small way to doing so.
Not all cities are facing the same challenges in getting their workers back to their workplaces. In general, the need for social distancing is likely to have a bigger impact on businesses in southern cities than northern cities, with implications for how quickly people will be able to get back to work once the lockdown is lifted.
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