The UK government has announced that employees can ask for flexible working from day one.
Flexible working covers many options, including part-time hours, compressed hours, job sharing, working from home or hybrid working, you can read more about the different types here.
There’s acres of evidence on how flexible working arrangements improve employee wellbeing. Since multiple lockdowns forced many of us to work from home, remote and hybrid work options have never been more sought after. Many companies are embracing this change by offering coworking space passes or smaller offices their employees can use ad hoc or on set days per week.
If you’re looking for flexibility in a role, then your employer will need a good reason to reject your request. The government says,
We scoured the job listings on LinkedIn to find out which industries post the highest number of jobs in the onsite, hybrid and remote categories and the percentage of those job adverts that include the word “flexible” – and the results may surprise you.
If we think of the ultimate flexibility as being fully remote, Software is the clear winner, with over 28% of software jobs on LinkedIn being offered a fully remote option and 25% actively suggesting they are open to flexible working.
It’s not a complete surprise that the industry that built the remote technology that took us through the pandemic and beyond is also the most flexible in where they work. Software also comes in second for hybrid working options meaning at least 61% of software has some remote working; that’s super flexible!
(P.S. if you’re in software or digital and fancy a desk in a flexible coworking space in London, come for a visit to our place in Old Street, just down the road from Silicon Roundabout!)
If you’re keen to get into the office and collaborate face to face but still value your freedom to work from wherever PR wins the hybrid-working category with a whopping 60% of advertised jobs slated as a hybrid. Just 16% of listed jobs suggest they are flexible; maybe that’s because PR can be busy and not your average 9-5. It’s also creative and highly collaborative, so with just over a third of jobs advertised as purely onsite, time with the team is definitely on the PR agenda!
(Are you in PR or marketing and looking for a vibrant new office space with perks? Our Camden office space is in one of the most exciting parts of London; great to get those collaborative juices flowing!)
Not all jobs have the luxury of being remote-friendly; some just have to be in a certain place at a certain time; retail, recruitment and education have the least many remote and hybrid options. We can see the sense, if you work in a shop or school, you’re more likely to need to be physically present in a particular space; perhaps this is also why just 15% of education jobs are advertised as flexible.
If you’re working in recruitment, design, architecture or any of the other industries that favour onsite over remote, that doesn’t have to mean a dreary office, it doesn’t even have to mean the same place every day, especially with work.life’s flexible plans.
(We have many recruitment professionals at our fabulous Hammersmith and Bermondsey flexible workspaces because if you have to be onsite, you might as well be in a brilliant dog-friendly space with socials and perks galore!)
While accounting has one of the higher expectations for being onsite at 73%, it also has the highest percentage of job adverts that include “flexible”.
We can think of a number of reasons a job as sensitive as dealing with money can be required to be onsite. An office space’s added security and potential privacy are likely appealing, but that doesn’t mean the industry isn’t flexible. Almost one in three jobs is considered flexible and goes beyond your location; it can mean how many hours you work when you work if you job share and more that you can read about here.
Whatever your flexible working needs, find your flexible office space or coworking space at Work.Life. Book a tour today to discover work-life harmony!
