Britain leads world in working from home

The number of people working from home in Britain has doubled over the past 15 years and accounts for about a quarter of the workforce, according to a book out today.

Research published by the on-going Future of Work Research Programme, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, shows the number of people working mainly at home jumped between 1981 and 1998 from 345,920 to 680,612.

The number of workers who report having no fixed place to carry out their work has also tripled from 641,900 to 1,824,154. More than 25 per cent of the workforce report working from home at least some of the time.

International comparisons suggest Britain has one of the highest incidences of working at home in the industrialised world.