Almost one third of all employees worldwide will be remote workers by the end of 2021, Gartner predicts

32 per cent of the global workforce and 51 per cent of knowledge workers worldwide are expected to spend at least some time outside of the office

Almost a third of the global workforce will be working at least somewhat remotely by the end of this year, new research from Gartner predicts.

The researcher estimates that remote workers, those working away from the office at least one day a week, will make up 32 per cent of all employees worldwide by the end of 2021, an increase of 15 percentage points from 2019.

Over half of all knowledge workers worldwide, those working in knowledge-intensive occupations such as accountants and engineers, will be working remotely by the end of the year, it says, with 51 per cent expected to spend time away from the office - up from 27 per cent in 2019.

Gartner's senior research director, Ranjit Atwal, says the Covid crisis has brought forward the shift to remote working, which, prior to the pandemic, Gartner expected to take place several years from now.

"We thought this might happen in four or five years' time when millennials and the next generation joined the workforce to drive a more flexible work environment," he said.

"This is being imposed on us at the moment but moving forward, it's going to be companies allowing us to do this, so the responsibilities and the way we do this will change as well.

"What's really been proven through this is that people, with a given autonomy, we can trust them. It looks as though they will do what they need to do and in some cases, they will do more."

The research also predicts that in 2022, 31 per cent of all workers worldwide are expected to work remotely, with the US leading the way at 53 per cent of its total workforce.

Across Europe, UK remote workers will represent 52 per cent of its workforce in 2022, while remote workers in Germany and France will account for 37 per cent and 33 per cent respectively.

India and China will produce some of the largest numbers of remote workers, but their overall rates will remain relatively low with 30 per cent of workers in India being remote along with 28 per cent of workers in China.

The shift to remote working has also increased the workforce's "digital dexterity levels", Atwal says, adding that tech companies will continue to benefit from the digital transformation that has taken place during the pandemic, with PC and tablet shipments set to exceed 500 million units for the first time in history this year.

"The average person's dexterity levels have increased, which is really good for the industry," he explained.

"Because now, the more people who are well versed with technology actually bodes well for the technology companies, because now they can actually push out more sophisticated functional features that more people will appreciate.

"Tolerance levels for connectivity have also been lowered. Previously we've accepted not great environments because of whatever circumstances but that will change as well because moving forward and out of the experimental, Covid-driven circumstances, we will move into a normal business environment and those types of setups should not be tolerated.

"The whole shift to a digital workplace environment and digitisation generally has sped up incredibly, and this is across the board from small businesses all the way through to multi-national businesses."

The release of Gartner's remote worker forecast comes after both Amazon and Google announced U-turns on their remote working policy, allowing its employees to work more flexibly post-pandemic.

And Atwal says tech companies have largely embraced hybrid working, often more so than other industries, while claiming that the decisions of tech giants like Google and Amazon will have a big impact on how the rest of the sector responds.

"Once one of them does it, then it's pretty much impossible for the others to say ‘no you need to come to the office every day'," he added.

"They're going back and forth somewhat because I think there's also things that don't get mentioned like legal requirements and compliance and lots of things which have basically been ignored in the last 18 months because there's no way around that.

"Now it's changed, because that was government enforced working from home but we are now going to move to company flexibility, so the responsibilities and the regulation and everything changes and the companies will become responsible for this over the longer term, including wellness and health and everything that goes with it.

"I think across the world tech, as an industry, is pretty much ahead of the game. The issue across the board is how do you encourage and drive both collaboration and innovation which is needed in technology companies? That's what organisations are trying to work through now."