Centre for Cities’ latest briefing reveals that hybrid working has changed when we go out in city centres. Central London workers have swapped Friday night drinks for Thursdays, and in other big cities they’ve swapped weekdays for weekends.
Chiefe Executive Andrew Carter commented: “Five years ago, the UK went into lockdown. Some commentators predicted the demise of the office, the end of face-to-face interaction at work and the hollowing out of cities. Five years on, cities certainly have changed but in more subtle and surprising ways than some of the early doom laden predictions.”
“Cities haven’t hollowed out. The office endures – by 2024 the time workers spent in the office was 70 per cent of the February 2020 level. And public transport ridership is recovering – in our big cities its now around 90 per cent of pre-pandemic levels in cities.
The Centre for Cities briefing looks at the impact of hybrid working on spending patterns by workers in both city centres and their local neighbourhoods. While life today looks much closer to what it did in 2019 than many predicted, it is certainly the case that home working is higher on Mondays and Fridays than it was pre-pandemic. This affects how our cities operate, look and feel.