Over half (58%) of workers say they would either quit immediately or start looking for a new job if required to return to the office full-time, according to research from the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London.
By Maggie Mancini
Less than half of U.K. workers would comply with a full-time return-to-office mandate, with women and some parents showing the strongest resistance to employer demands for in-person attendance, according to research from the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London and King’s Business School. Despite high-profile CEO announcements and media reports suggesting a “great return” to workplaces, researchers have found no evidence of a mass move back to offices, with working-from-home rates remaining stable since 2022.
The research shows growing worker resistance to rigid office mandates, with 42% of workers saying they would comply with a five-day RTO requirement, down from 54% in early 2022.
From early 2022 to mid-2024, the proportion of workers saying they would look for a new job with remote opportunities if their current employer tried to make them return to the office full-time rose from 40% to 50%. Similarly, over the same time period, the share of workers saying they would quit straight away if forced to go in five days a week doubled from 5% to 10%.
Overall, 58% of workers now say they would either quit immediately (9%) or start looking for a new job (49%) if required to return full-time. Women are more likely to resist, with 64% saying they would quit or seek alternative employment, compared to 51% of men.
Parents have particularly shown growing opposition to full-time office requirements. In early 2022, 38% of fathers with school-age children said they would quit or look for a new job in response to such a mandate. By the end of 2024, this rose to 53%.
Just one in three (33%) mothers with young children say they would comply with full-time office mandates. Meanwhile, Black and minority ethnic workers show higher rates of compliance with full-time RTO mandates.
Employer policies have not shifted significantly towards eliminating remote work: Nearly 27% of women said their home was their main place of work between the first quarter of 2022 and the fourth quarter of 2024. Similarly, for men, the rate has remained at around 30%, although a slight decrease of around 1 to 2 percentage points is observable in the most recent data.
If anything, there has been a slow increase in average permitted work-from-home days – from less than one day per week in 2022 to about 1.3 days in 2024. However, there is also evidence to show that employers are less likely to allow fully remote working, with a slight increase in the number of homeworking policies that permit staff to only work from home one to two days per week.
Researchers warn that rigid RTO policies risk creating a two-tier workforce and undermining diversity. Women and parents who cannot comply with RTO requirement due to caregiving and other household responsibilities may be forced out. Remote workers are likely to face a greater flexibility stigma and potential career penalties, especially when it is generally mothers who work from home. Organisations implementing inflexible mandates risk significant recruitment, skills, and retention challenges.
