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UK notches up 5.5 million teleworkers
Less time commuting, more time watching Quincy reruns?

By Jo Best

Published: Thursday 01 September 2005

Over five million Britons in employment are now working remotely, a new report has found - with those in suburbs and London leading the way.

According to research firm Point Topic, there are 3.8 million full-time teleworkers in the UK, with 5.5 million people spending some of their week working remotely.

The majority of the non-officebound are freelancers and sole traders with managerial positions, Point Topic said, and are likely to be men living in suburbs or affluent towns. The highest level of remote working can be found in London, while Wales, the North West and Yorkshire are the least popular with teleworkers.

The trend towards remote working is proving a boon to the security industry but less so to the ISPs that homeworkers rely on, the report said.

Point Topic found that remote workers tend to have a more conscientious attitude towards keeping their PCs secure, spending on average one-third more on security products than non-homeworking PC owners.

The research also found that teleworkers were more likely to use smaller ISPs for their internet access and have a seemingly high churn rate, with teleworkers twice as likely as average users to change their ISP in the coming six months.