For many, 2020 became the year of “work from home.” For some, it was their first experience of doing so. And while some loved it, others enjoyed it much less. With the pandemic still very much an issue as we begin 2021 and official UK Government advice still being to work from home where possible, work from home isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. With that in mind, we spoke to 2,000 adults in the UK and took a look at the current state of play in our latest work from home statistics round up.

Where in the house do we work?

Not everybody is fortunate enough to have a dedicated home office or even a good home office chair. We had very little warning when we had to ditch the office and take our work home this year, so most of us would have had little time to prepare. 

So where are most of the UK’s homeworkers actually working from?

We polled 2,041 respondents in December 2020 and found 1,133 of them have been or are currently working from home.

We asked them where in the house they work most frequently and here’s what they said. 

• 37.95% work in a dedicated home office, meaning the majority don’t work in such a space
• 19.59% work sitting at a kitchen or dining table
• 11.74% work sitting on the sofa
• 10.24% most frequently work in bed

There are variations amongst age groups too, with the 16 to 24s the most likely to work in bed.

Men are likelier than women to be working from a home office

In terms of those who do from home, 43.69% of men are working from a home office but this figure falls to just 32.28% for women.

How many of us are working in bed?

Just over 1 in 10 of those working from home are most frequently working from bed! And there are notable variations here depending on age:

Bed is the single most popular frequent home working spot for the youngest age group, becoming less popular the older we get.

Working on the Couch

Just a tad more popular than working in bed, couch working is the choice for 11.74% of us.

• Women are likelier to work frequently from the couch (14.39%) than men (9.06%)
• Only 6.37% of 16 to 24 year olds work frequently from the couch
• This rises to 14.23% for those aged 25 to 34

Other Strange Working Spaces

We were surprised to see many working from some less than expected places, including sitting on the floor (2.56%) and on a beanbag (2.03%).

How many people regularly work from home at the moment?

The Government advice as of December 2020 remains to work at home where you can do so effectively. But for many, home working isn’t an option. So just how many are working at home regularly at the moment?

55.5% of over 16s in the UK are currently working from home regularly based on our poll of 2,041 respondents.

There’s a variation here region by region too:

Work from home search trends

As with everything that happens (whether it’s a pandemic or a viral TikTok trend), the current state of play is influencing the way we search online too.

According to kwfinder.com: 

• There were 165,000 searches in March 2020 for “work from home,” up from a meagre 27,100 in February 2020

Searches for “home office chairs” rose too according to the same data source. Take a look at the estimated number of searches per month for “home office chairs” over 2019 and 2020:

Working from Home - Tips for Staying Pain Free

If you’re one of the 10% working from your bed or the 12% working from the sofa, you may have noticed an increase in back pain and overall discomfort as a result. We spoke to personal trainer, Melanie Gilder, for a bit of advice on staving off the pain when you’re working from home without a proper WFH setup. Here’s the advice she offered:

“I work with lots of clients who suffer aches and pains as the result of posture issues brought about by time at a screen and this has been more pronounced since more people started working from home. Those who don’t have a table and a chair to use are those I see most likely to suffer. Here are some tips to help if this applies to you:

• Put a cushion under your bottom. One of the main reasons sitting on a couch can be uncomfortable for working is that they’re low in many cases and the sitting position often has your hips lower than your needs. Using a purpose built sitting wedge or even a couple of cushions to raise your hips a bit could help
• Consider some sort of lumbar support cushion to go behind the bottom of your back too. Again, failing this, a normal cushion could do it
• Consider a laptop tray table so you’re not reaching over to a coffee table - again something that could result in lower back pain
• Get up regularly and move around during the day

Making sure you get up regularly is important, even if you’re only going to put the kettle on!”