Many UK employees are signing off early and working from further afield during the summer months, as employers offer seasonal flexibility — or turn a blind eye — despite efforts to bring staff back into the office more regularly.
New broadband data from Virgin Media reveals an 8 per cent drop in internet traffic between 3pm and 5pm on Fridays compared with winter months, with remote workers often heading to the pub or starting their weekend early. According to Virgin Media, which compiled the data, 59 per cent of surveyed workers said they didn’t feel guilty about logging off early on Fridays, while 61 per cent believed they had earned the privilege after a productive week.
Nearly a quarter admitted to leaving work early while keeping their online status set to “active”, and 30 per cent of 18–24-year-olds said they had worked remotely from a car while travelling. Ten per cent had taken their laptop to a beer garden, the survey found.
Despite the shift in behaviour, the data also found that many workers consider themselves more productive earlier in the week if they know they can finish early on Friday.
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Summer schemes formalised
The trend is not limited to individual behaviour. Several companies are now formally offering additional flexibility during the summer, according to a report in the Financial Times. Law firm Pinsent Masons is allowing staff in Europe to take four half-days across July and August, while US-based firm Covington & Burling has told employees they can work from home for up to two weeks during August. UK asset manager Jupiter is allowing remote work throughout the month to help parents with holiday childcare.
“Childcare during school holidays, especially the long summer holidays, can pose challenges for some families so we increase the flexibility available to our staff across the month of August,” Jupiter’s head of HR, Tracey Kinsella, told the Financial Times.
Meanwhile, KPMG is offering staff the chance to finish at 1pm one day a week from mid-June to the end of August, which is part of a wider programme of summer flexibility. Domestic & General is running coding camps for employees’ children and Hyve Group is continuing its “summer Fridays” programme for a third year, which includes early finishes and even a free ice cream cart in the office.
Employer hesitation over long-term expectations
While some organisations are embracing summer flexibility, others are scaling back or avoiding new schemes altogether. PwC has gradually reduced the duration of its summer Fridays benefit from 12 weeks in 2021 to six weeks last year, according to people cited by the Financial Times. Internally, the firm has rebranded the initiative from “summer working hours” to “summer empowerment”, giving managers greater discretion over whether junior staff can leave early.
One consulting firm executive told the Financial Times they were reluctant to offer additional summer perks due to concerns about the difficulty of withdrawing them later without staff backlash.
Professor Laura Empson of Bayes Business School warned that temporary summer flexibility may backfire if not handled carefully. “The problem with offering professionals remote working as a reward during the summer is that, come the autumn, it makes the requirement to spend more time in the office look like a punishment,” she said.
She added that rather than simply sending people home when work slows down, quieter months could be used to invest in team relationships and culture: “Professional employees aren’t like taps to be turned on and off.”
A widening gap between worker and employer expectations
While some high-profile firms — including JP Morgan Chase, Amazon and Goldman Sachs — have moved to restrict remote working, British employees are becoming more resistant to full-time office mandates. According to a King’s College London study cited by The Times, just 42 per cent of workers said they would comply with a five-day return-to-office requirement, down from 54 per cent in early 2022. The share of employees who would rather switch jobs than return to the office full-time has risen from 40 to 50 per cent.
“If some people are logging off at 3pm on a Friday, that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy, associate professor of economics at King’s, told The Times. “In fact, it may reflect greater efficiency, better time management, or simply a more balanced work culture.”
UK employees now average 1.8 days working from home per week, compared to a global average of 1.3, according to the same study.
