Workers going into office just 1.5 days a week, survey suggests

UK workers are going into the office an average of just 1.5 days a week, with only 13% coming in on a Friday, a survey suggests.

Consultancy Advanced Workplace Associates surveyed 43 offices in the UK, representing nearly 50,000 people, in June and July.

It found average attendance was just 29%, with a peak of 39% mid-week.

During the pandemic offices shifted to home-working but many have continued with a hybrid model since then.

Pre-Covid, UK workers were going into the office an average of 3.8 days a week, the research, which covered sectors including banking, energy, engineering, healthcare, insurance and tech, found.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, only 35.9% did some work at home, an increase of 9.4 percentage points compared with 2019.

A separate ONS survey in spring 2022, when guidance to work from home was no longer in place in Great Britain, found 38% of working adults reported having worked from home at some point over the past seven days.

Advanced Workplace Associates, which advises organisations including the Cabinet Office, NatWest and Network Rail, found the UK was broadly in line with other countries.

It also surveyed 36 offices in 12 other countries, representing more than 27,000 people.

The consultancy found people were coming into the office an average of just 1.4 days a week, compared to 3.8 days a week pre-pandemic.

Average attendance was 26%, with a peak of 35% mid-week.

North America and Latin America had the lowest average attendance.

Banking had the highest average attendance of the sectors surveyed and tech had the lowest.

The survey found organisations with hybrid working policies - where they specify employees should be in the office for a certain number of days - had higher attendance than those that did not.

However, employees still appeared to be going into the office less than the policy mandated.

If an employer trusts its teams to set their own policies, attendance is 41% - almost the same as where a three-day week is imposed.

The UK government first asked people to work from home if they could in March 2020.

Guidance and legal restrictions have varied between different parts of the UK since then but in England and Scotland advice to work from home was lifted most recently in January. Other parts of the UK kept the guidance in place for longer but eventually dropped it.