If you want to work from home, these are the jobs to avoid as a graduate

One of the longest-lasting effects of the Covid pandemic – and more specifically, the subsequent lockdowns – is the emergence of hybrid working arrangements. Although these arrangements are being rolled back slowly, they’re not being rolled back quite for everyone.

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A report from the Institute of Student Employers (ISE) suggests that you can still work from home if you work in banking or professional services in the UK. The ISE found that graduates working in the finance & professional services fields worked the second least days. The best jobs for working from home are in the digital & IT industry. The worst are in consumer goods, tourism and law.

The survey suggests junior bankers, consultants and accounts can still work from home even as banks make well-publicized attempts to get them back in. Banks (such as Truist) and fintechs (such as Stripe) are among those expecting people in the office more than before. JPMorgan MDs expect their juniors to be in the office full-time, although that only came after they were directly mandated to do the same thing. Bank of America is also pushing for more days in the office, as are Deutsche Bank are Goldman Sachs. The head of HSBC’s investment bank said recently that working from home is good for financial modelling, but not much else. 

Our lifestyle report, published at the start of this year, showed that while some banking sectors, such as compliance and technology, spent significantly more time in the office in 2023 compared to 2022 (from a very low baseline, admittedly), others such as sales and trading teams spent more or less the same time in the office. Operations people even spent slightly less time in the office in 2023 compared to 2022.

Many employees, especially young ones, would rather not be in the office. Employers, especially those with sprawling commercial real estate investments (and portfolios), would rather put their office space to good use.

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