Remote Work Statistics in 2023 & What’s Next for the Work-from-Home Revolution

A seismic shift since the Covid-19 pandemic has propelled remote work into our professional forefront, reshaping the dynamics of our working life. The quick turn of events around the start of 2020 necessitated a swift adaptation by human resources departments. But now we are back to a somewhat normal state of life, what’s next for remote workers?

This article provides an in-depth analysis of remote working trends and statistics. Let’s take a look at what’s happening in 2023 regarding the work-from-home status that struck the world just a few short years back.

Key Remote Work Statistics

• 40% of UK adults now work from home at least once per week
• 26.7% of workers express wanting to work from home full-time
• ⅓ of workers have or would consider quitting their job if their employer made them come back to the office full time
• According to Forbes, employees are 20% happier when they work from home
• Communication channel Slack users have risen by 50% since covid

Company Approaches: Fully Remote, Hybrid, and Office-Based

As of 2023, remote work has remained pervasive, with around 40% of adults in the UK reporting working from home within the past seven days. Of this, it was found that 16.3% of people worked at home full time, and 24.8% were hybrid. The hybrid model, combining home and in-office work, offers both flexibility and physical presence at the workplace.

Despite the rise of remote work, a significant portion of the workforce (58.9%) still engages in traditional in-office work, highlighting the coexistence of diverse work arrangements. However, only 10.3% of the overall cohort did have any means of working from home. Essentially, the majority of people who did not work from home, could not work from home.

But how does this stack up compared with pre-covid stats?

These stats are astounding, considering the UK’s pre-covid work-from-home percentage was a measly 5.7%. Considering we have been back to a relatively normal world and work environment for the past 12+ months, it is interesting to see that work-from-home rates don’t seem to be falling much. Work-from-home rates have stayed steadily between 30–40% of the UK since the second lockdown ceased.

The trajectory of remote work is set to be maintained, with an estimated 40% of the UK workforce, projected to work remotely by 2025. Evidently, remote work is not just a temporary response to the pandemic but a fundamental shift that is likely to persist.

UK Employee Age & Gender Preferences

The workforce’s inclination toward remote work is evident through statistics. 26.7% of workers express a desire to work fully remotely. It was found that older people are more likely to want to work solely at home than younger people across the UK.

*Source — Work from Home Statistics 2023

It was also found that females are slightly more likely to want to work from home compared with males.

Who’s Returning to the Office Full Time?

Even though many corporations are mandating their staff to return to the office, the figures are not stacking up. According to the seventh edition of the Talent Index from Beamery, 37% of the UK workforce is being forced to go back to the office. However, as of July 2023, 40%+ of working adults still work from home, in a hybrid role at minimum. Why could this be?

Well, there seems to have been a shift in regard to employees’ job satisfaction. More than a third of workers would or have thought about quitting their jobs if their current employer took away their work-from-home flexibility. With women particularly disposed to this trend; 52% of females reported they had left or planned to leave their job if their employer forced office-only work plans moving forward.

Work-from-Home: Productivity & Employee Satisfaction

Many people often criticise work-from-home, saying it gives employees too much freedom and promotes a decrease in overall productivity. However, with that in mind UK Parliament indicates that the available body of research illuminates the multifaceted perceptions harboured by employees regarding flexible work arrangements.

The merits attributed to remote and hybrid working arrangements encompass heightened levels of individual well-being, increased productivity subjectively gauged by the workers themselves, and a more profound sense of contentment derived from their work. Additionally, these arrangements are seen to mitigate the struggle between work and personal life that many workers battle with on a weekly basis.

Counterbalancing these aspects, people suggest that working from home causes heightened workload intensity, the potential for diversion and inattentiveness, and a notable incapacity to disengage from professional responsibilities.

If we take a snapshot of the whole picture in regard to how this makes employees feel, overall people are 20% happier having the option to work from home. As well as this, some studies suggest that productivity can increase up to 13% when people work from home.

Remote Work Communication Channel Statistics

So we can see that employees are happier, more productive and actually want to work from home, but how is this affecting how people actually get the work done? Obviously, by not being in the office, it isn’t as easy as tapping your manager on the back to ask a quick question. So what’s happening in regard to work communication channels?

On average, companies have implemented 3.5 new communication channels. The channels that saw the most substantial increase in usage were live chat, email, and video.

Slack, an online messaging platform, saw a sharp increase in users compared with pre and post covid. Between 2019 and 2020, they saw an increase in users by 50%, seeing 6 million new users join the platform across the globe.

The same was seen for Zoom, a video conferencing software. Zoom has been a pivotal player in the remote work software communication industry. This company saw a huge increase in revenue between 2019 to 2023, with a massive increase of 587% in quarterly revenue.

As with many things, only time will tell when it comes to how corporations continue to evolve post covid. Currently it seems that working from home is here to stay. But what remains fact is that there has been a shift in employee culture towards companies allowing their staff to work from home.