Working From Home - is this the beginning of the end?

People are bored of working from home and want to return to the "comfort" of office work and city centre socialising.

That’s the view of Howard Dawber, head of strategy at Canary Wharf Group, whose office complex currently has some 6,000 people on site instead of its pre-Covid norm of 110,000.

"We've got to the point where there is a lot of fatigue out there. Working from home for the first couple of months of last year when the sun was shining and people were enjoying perhaps a more flexible environment, there was a sense that this was going to be a short-term process” he has told the BBC. 

"I think now people are really missing that opportunity to collaborate with and just see their friends in the office, to get your hair cut, to go and get a good coffee at lunchtime and to do all the life admin things you can do in a city centre.”

Canary Wharf and nearby areas are amongst the densest private rental locations within London, with many tenants working close by.

Dawber continues that while he recognises some may want to continue working from home at least part-time, he adds: “From March 29 onwards I think we will see people starting to return to the workplace and particularly as we get towards June when things like bars, restaurants, services, hairdressers open up I think we will start to see people back in offices and we are expecting significant numbers back over the summer."

For the moment it remains government advice that people in England continue to work from home where possible It is hoped, however, that all all legal limits on social contact can be removed "no later than June 21".

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