Nine out of 10 people want to continue working from home despite Boris Johnson's push for return to office

Ministers worry that once-busy centres will become ghost areas as many workers stay at home

New research has found that nine out of 10 people in the UK who have worked from home during the coronavirus lockdown want to continue doing so.

It comes as the government plans to launch a campaign to reassure the public that the workplace is safe and help people avoid crowded public transport to get them back into the office.

The report, titled ‘Homeworking in the UK: before and during the 2020 lockdown’, is the first to analyse survey data focused on working from home during the pandemic.

Before the start of the pandemic, just six per cent of employees in the UK worked from home. That rose to 43 per cent in April, with results indicating that productivity mostly remained stable compared with the six months before.

Academics at Cardiff University and the University of Southampton, who produced the report, found that 88 per cent of employees who worked from home during lockdown would like to continue doing so in some capacity. And 47 per cent said they want to work from home often or all the time.

Forty-one per cent of people said they got as much work done at home as they did six months earlier when most people were working in their offices.

More than a quarter (29 per cent) said they got more done at home, while 30 per cent said their productivity had fallen.

The shift to working from home mostly affected those who are highest paid, better qualified and higher skilled, and those living in London and the south east.

Professor Alan Felstead, based at Cardiff University and the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD), said the results pointed to a “major shift” from the traditional workplace.

“What is particularly striking is that many of those who have worked at home during lockdown would like to continue to work in this way, even when social distancing rules do not require them to,” he said.

“These people are among the most productive, so preventing them from choosing how they work in the future does not make economic sense. Giving employees flexibility on where they work could be extremely beneficial for companies as they attempt to recover from the impact of Covid-10.”

But ministers believe there is a “limit” to working from home. The government is set to launch a major media campaign next week to encourage employees to return to the office, amid fears towns and city centres are on the verge of becoming deserted as commuters stay at home.

Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, told Sky News on Friday: “I think there’s a limit, just in human terms, to remote working.

“And there are things where you just need to spark off each other and get together in order to make progress. So I think common sense will prevail between employers and employees.

But Labour has warned that the campaign is risky, and should be reconsidered.

Labour's shadow business minister Lucy Powell said: "It beggars belief that the Government are threatening people like this during a pandemic. Forcing people to choose between their health and their job is unconscionable.

"Number 10 should condemn this briefing and categorically rule out any such campaign."

Only 17 per cent of workers in UK cities returned to their workplaces by early August, according to data from the Centre for Cities.

The organisation noted that if people continue to work from home for at least some of the week, many shops and restaurants in city centres that rely on office workers will struggle if weekday sales shrink.

Mr Shapps said: “Our central message is pretty straightforward: we are saying to people it is now safe to return to work.”