Online Remote Working Proves Popular for 66% of UK People

LONDON - Feb. 2, 2015 - PRLog -- Good access to faster broadband connectivity can be a significant force for change and that's especially true in terms of its impact upon working patterns. A new survey of 1,095 ISPreview.co.uk readers in the United Kingdom, which was conducted during December 2014 and January 2015, has reported that 68% of respondents now remote work (online) from home or while commuting to their day job (only 32% said they don't remote work at all). Separately just 19% said that the only time they remote work from home is when they're on sick leave.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the most common device for respondents to use when remote working was a PC or MAC computer system (57%), while 18% voted for their Smartphone (most likely due to work related calls instead of Internet use), 8% chose a tablet computer and the remaining 18% picked the "other / none" option.

But sadly remote working over the Internet also appears to be making it even harder to escape from work, even when on holiday.

Do you ever remote work while on holiday?
No - Never - 48.2%
Yes - Rarely - 31%
Yes - Frequently - 20.7%

"The importance of remote working to an economy is nothing new and in that sense it's good to see that nearly half of all the respondents to our survey are doing it," said ISPreview.co.uk's Founder, Mark Jackson. "Remote working can also deliver a change in working patters, which may have other important benefits, such as by making daily commutes on the train/bus more productive or through helping to reduce the level of traffic on our roads."

"But using the Internet to work from home or while commuting on public transport often requires a good broadband connection, especially if it involves the transmission of large files or other data intensive tasks. The government's Broadband Delivery UK project, which intends to make 'superfast' speeds of greater than 24Mbps available to 95% of people by 2017, is a big help in all this."

"Never the less it's important that the Government finds a way to extend this promise to the final 5% of the country so that businesses and their employees can reap the benefits no matter where they're based. In doing this we'd also like to see BDUK put a greater focus on the often neglected matter of upload speeds, which are particularly vital for businesses tasks (e.g. sending large files)," concluded Jackson.