Nine in 10 British workers have been made to come into the office more days each week as the number working from home starts to decline.
The most common compulsory office days are Mondays at 65 per cent and Wednesdays at 67 per cent, findings from the latest Virgin Media O2 business movers index revealed.
Meanwhile, less than half (48 per cent) are required to come into work on Fridays, with the remainder still working from the comfort of their homes.
Companies making staff come back in include banks JP Morgan Chase and Barclays, as well as tech group Amazon, The Times first reported.
Working remotely became normalised during the pandemic, with respondents who prefer working in the office saying productivity and clear work-life boundaries are better than when staying home.
Those who would opt to work remotely cited flexibility (55 per cent), saving money (55 per cent) and ability to focus away from colleagues (35 per cent) as some of their reasons.
Mónica Mercado Páez, head of AI and data at Virgin Media O2 Business, said: ‘As businesses have begun establishing office attendance policies, our anonymised and aggregated O2 mobile data reveals a mixed impact on commuting nationwide.
‘Despite implementing these measures, the number of Brits commuting to major towns decreased by 7 per cent in 2024 compared to 2023, indicating companies are still embracing hybrid and remote working options.’
But working from home could be bad for health as young adults who do it may get half an hour less exercise per day, a recent study found.
The study of people starting their first job got an extra 28 minutes a day of moderate physical activity, such as walking or cycling.
But those working from home saw an average 32-minute drop in their moderate physical activity.
To judge how starting work affected people’s physical activity, sleep and diet, researchers looked at young adults in the UK – aged 16 to 30 – who took part in a national household survey.
These volunteers reported their employment status every year and, every three years, were asked how much exercise they got in a typical week.
This included moderate physical activity, such as cycling, as well as vigorous physical activity like heavy lifting or aerobics.
Researchers compared 128 people who worked from home with more than 3,000 who went to an office or other workplace.
The fall in physical activity for people working at home, based on the analysis, was the equivalent of 32 minutes of moderate activity a day, or 16 minutes of vigorous activity a day.