Demand for remote workers in Britain tripled over the course of 2020 as businesses grew more willing to let staff work from home during the coronavirus pandemic, figures from a recruitment consultancy showed on Monday.

Numerous businesses including Facebook, Hitachi, Unilever and Lloyds Banking Group have announced plans to make home working a standard practice in the longer term for many of their employees.

Some 80,700 jobs that allowed remote working were advertised in November, up 203 per cent from 26,600 in November 2019, recruiters New Street Consulting Group said, based on industry data provided by analysts Emsi.

Natalie Douglass, director of talent strategy consulting at New Street Consulting Group, said: “Businesses are now deciding how many of their staff they are going to bring back into the office once this crisis is finally over and how many can stay remote.

“Most businesses take the view that staff and tasks are better off in an office environment where close team working, collaboration and mentoring can more easily take place. However, we are certainly going to see a more hybrid workforce with working from home an option for at least some of their staff.”

“There has also been a trend in recent years to invest more in the workplace, to make it somewhere where staff would want to spend time. It will be quite a revolution if that trend doesn’t eventually reassert itself,” Douglass added.

Official data showed 547,000 job vacancies in Britain in the three months to November, down almost a third on a year earlier.

Last year, a study found recruiters were 20 per cent more likely to list flexible working options when prompted to do so when posting a job on Indeed, and their adverts attracted 30 per cent more applications than those that did not mention flexible working.

A recent KPMG report suggested the loss of commuters could cost up to 400,000 retail jobs.