Time flies. It’s hard to believe 2013 was when I last (and first) wrote about remote working. A lot has happened in the meantime and finding myself exposed again to the vagaries of the IT remote job market I realised it’s time for an update on the state of play out there, based on my own experiences.

First let me define what I mean by remote work. I mean a job which can be done entirely from home, or in a shared local co-working space, or as a digital nomad (i.e. from many locations). I do not define remote work as mandated regular (rather than occasional) presence in a particular office or location; that is simply an on-site role with some remote flexibility (rather than a remote role with some on-site flexibility.) That clarified, let’s proceed.

The most significant change that came for remote working in 2020 could hardly have been foreseen. A health-justified lockdown was imposed, and anyone who could work from home had to work from home. Before 2020 it felt relatively pioneering to be a remote worker (though in my case it was always of necessity rather than any desire to be innovative or different). Then I found myself no longer in the minority. I’ll admit I was glad to suddenly be in the same boat as everyone, because now everyone knew and understood all the challenges and benefits of remote working that I’d spoken about for years. I was happy to share my insights on managing remote work, and to help my colleagues and friends navigate their strange new world of working from home.

With nearly everyone having experienced remote work (or at least having seen the possibility of it) and the supports needed to assist it, I’d imagined that remote work options would become the norm after lockdown, and the days of remote work scarcity were surely over for good. I was wrong. Instead of remote work provisioning improving (as we might have expected), it has actually gotten worse since the lockdown, and the situation for remote work is not looking good. Here’s what I’m seeing, on the ground, and the factors causing it.

1. Remote Work Policies

Many organisations have seen the need to implement policies around working location, due mainly to people’s lockdown working experiences and their subsequent expectations. Before lockdown, those policies didn’t exist (and the need for them wasn’t even acknowledged). The source of the current policies are twofold – State governmental policies (and laws), and the policies of individual corporations.

1.1 State Policies

Speaking in the Irish context here, I can say that the much-anticipated and over-promised remote working legislation here introduced in 2024 proved utterly toothless and disappointing. There are is legal obligation on an employer to allow an employee to work remotely, even under protected conditions. There is only the legal requirement to consider a request for remote work (usually when already in a job - it says nothing about newly advertised roles). The legislation merely mandates that the employer reply, and state the reasons when denying the request.

Unfortunately, a broader global search reveals that this is the policy for most countries, i.e. a ”right to request” law only. The only country that seems to impose any form of legal ban on refusing remote work is Angola where, for example, an employee can not refuse remote work if onsite work would be incompatible or unsafe for workers with health conditions or disabilities (or with disabled dependants). Angola’s law in regard to remote work is so eminently sensible and admirable, it makes you wonder why that law is such an outlier on the global stage.

Irish State funding has been provided in the past to “encourage” remote work via NGO vehicles such as GrowRemote which received one million euro in 2020 ostensibly to “transform the working landscape of Ireland by encouraging and enabling more people to work remotely.”

Notably this funding was allocated just months before (– and arguably rendered redundant by –) the largest work-from-home mandate in human history. As of the time of writing the GrowRemote is using mmonies from the State training funds for corporate training schemes “to solve the challenges they face with remote and hybrid management.”

After all, why bother politically encouraging remote work anymore when most people have made up their mind on it (from living memory and experience)?

1.2 Corporate Policies and the rise of “hybrid”

Post-lockdown saw the emergence of a new word into the remote work lexicon – “hybrid” working.

On paper it appears there are more remote work jobs now than ever before. We’re told remote work has quadrupled (in the US at least) since the days of lockdown, however on examination that figure is for remote work days worked (standing at about 28% of workers' days). It doesn’t mean there are more remote jobs; it means there are more hybrid jobs. “Hybrid” is masking that there’s actually fewer remote jobs now, many of them transformed into hybrid working mandates.

“Hybrid” arrangements were initially introduced by the giant corporations as a means to get back into the office a workforce that had grown comfortable (- perhaps too comfortable for their liking -) with remote working. Corporations knew that a return outright to full-time office attendance would have met great resistance, so a new, flexible “hybrid” remote working model appeared. It was sold as providing flexibility to choose when to work remotely. In reality, hybrid meant mandating a number of days on-site. Many suspected that hybrid arrangements were a Trojan horse for a full return-to-office mandate over time. What started a few days a month, turned into a day a week, then two, then three...

I’ll admit, I am particularly scathing of so-called hybrid work roles because it is so disingenuous. They are on-site roles dressed in the clothes of a remote role. The employee does not have an effective choice whether to work remotely or work on-site. The employee does not have the flexibility of choosing their work, or living, location. There are several accounts of employees who moved to - or bought new homes in - lower-cost areas only to have to relocate again to the higher cost areas within commutable distances of the mandated “hybrid” office.

IT corporations were only too willing to accept full-time remote work when it suited them during lockdown (i.e. when it was the only way they could get the work done and continue in business), citing concerns for the welfare of their employees and a desire to keep them safe.

An absent workforce made employers evaluate office expenses too (particularly office size and rental costs). Large companies were (rightly) not prepared to sink the rental expense of unused offices for very long. Hybrid offered the additional opportunity to “right-size” by maintaining the prestige of impressive office buildings, and shrink the rent bill by no longer committing to having a dedicated space for every employee. Hot-desking difficulties are part of the joys for many hybrid office workers in the new post-lockdown normal, including the fun of competing for booking desk space on the days you need it.

The sad truth revealed by lockdown, and the subsequent push to hybrid, is that most corporations support remote work only when it suits them, and don’t when it no longer does. Companies who are ideologically “remote-first” are still rare. They empower the employee (or consenting teams) to choose where they work, and where they work best.

For every anecdote out there about “hybrid” working aiding team-communication and improving productivity, you’ll find another anecdote about a load of employees sitting together in one location but still working alone (especially in the age of AI assistants) with noise-cancelling headphones on! Just putting people into the same room doesn’t automatically magically create team karma and deliver improved results. An office needs to be more than just a location.

Rather than needlessly imposing blanket “attend” mandates, unnecessary for certain work, that will most likely be greeted with suspicion (or possibly even resented) by employees that have tasted remote work, how about doing something to make the office an attractive place to be? It should be a place to voluntarily come to, because an employee feels empowered there, connected, able to optimise their environment and able to do their best (and most rewarding work)?

That’d be a policy everyone would get behind.

2. The Jobs Market

The last couple of years changed the fortunes of the jobs market, particularly in IT. Layoffs were widespread. Many reasons were stated: weakness in the economy; too many hired during the lockdown glut in IT staffing, investment in AI leading to less demand for human workers, etc.

The simple arithmetic of less jobs inevitably means less remote jobs too. And the other side of that equation is that there are now more job-seekers, so employers are more likely to find the candidates with skills they need who are also local and willing to work on-site. There's less need now to go worldwide to trawl for the skills and the talent you need in most sectors of IT. It is no longer the employees’ market it once was. In an employers’ market, they set the terms, including the location of work they prefer, and so remote gets pushed-off as an option on the (fewer) job listings out there.

AI too has had its impact directly on the jobs application process. Automated AI processing and posting of job applications has ruined the usual jobs portals for many. A lot of employees and employers are anecdotally now shunning them in favour of direct, or network, contacts.

One LinkedIn user described precisely the situation many remote job-seekers are experiencing: “Every remote opening gets hundreds of applications in a couple of hours. I heard crickets.”

3. Remote Work Sabotage

Lockdown saw a huge number of people working jobs remotely, most of them new to it. With a large number of inexperienced remote workers entering, it was inevitable that some would have difficultly with it, or even prove unsuited for remote work at all. Unfortunately, this has been taken to reflect badly on remote work itself (rather than the remote workers themselves, or the employers who adopted it badly). The reputation of remote work has become somewhat sabotaged of late.

3.1 Trust saboteurs, and the rise of the “over-employed”.

Those of us who have a long verified track record of successful remote working know that the freedom extended to choose your place of work is a responsibility. It is a freedom that should never be abused, or it gets taken away.

Regrettably, it’s true to say that some companies have been burnt by remote working employees. Not everyone proved trustworthy or self-disciplined enough. Some people even boasted about skiving-off work while at home by posting about it publicly on TikTok, for their employer and all the world to see (would you allow someone that daft to work unsupervised ever again?!)

There are people, it’s true, who are simply not suited to remote work: if you can’t maintain the discipline; if you’re too easily distracted; if your home situation doesn’t allow it; or if you prosper best in a social office environment. And, of course, there are some jobs that are never “remotable” anyway (such as factory assembly-line work).

But by far the greatest abusers were those using remote to hide the fact they were drawing two or more salaries from different employers. This is euphemistically called “over-employment.” There is the infamous example of Soham Parekh, who was discovered to be working five jobs at once remotely. This is a potential problem for employers that will only be exacerbated by AI, where employees could easily use AI agents to run multiple jobs at once. People who do this should be called out, because of the reputational damage they do to remote workers, poisoning the well of available remote jobs for those of us who genuinely need them. If appeals on behalf of others don’t move them, then the “over-employed” should consider the risks to themselves personally due to legal action for breach of contract (most employer contracts stipulate no work for other companies on their time), and reputational damage of being black-balled by the industry. What's the first thing that comes to a potential employer's mind, everytime they hear the candidate's Soham Parekh name?

To employers I say: It’s usually very easy to see, from the output produced, and its frequency, who is actually doing the work - and only that work - when they are situated remotely. Trust, but verify.

To the “over-employed” and remote-slackers I say: stop poisoning the well for those of us who truly need to work remotely, and who have proven trustworthy. Being irresponsible, destroying the reputation of remote work, will sabotage remote work advocacy for all of us.

3.2 Well-intentioned research, and its unfortunate consequences.

Lockdown provided us with a lot of data about remote working, and understandably the academics have been all over it, performing studies and writing papers. Remote Work is also a perennial hot topic in non-academic, professional circles too, such as social media site LinkedIn. I get several posts daily in my LinkedIn feed citing remote work studies. Rarely do these posts accurately reflect the underlying study (only reading the source study will do that), but they tend instead to select what they take from it based on their own confirmation bias, to reinforce an argument they wish to make, or agenda they’ve already decided to follow.

One recent example is a study entitled “Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health.” The sheer number of LinkedIn posts citing this article is mind-boggling, and with so many disparate interpretations of it, they would have you racing to read the original, just to see what it actually truly says (and does not say).

Perhaps with the return-to-office push, and remote work going out of fashion post-lockdown ( - who wants to be reminded of the enforced behaviours of the lockdown years! - ), then it’s no surprise that studies focussing on the downsides of remote work get amplified in the social feeds right now. But to read some them, you would think remote work is the new smoking, or the new sitting, or the new social media – it’s that bad for you!

Neither office nor remote working are without their challenges. Anyone knows this if (like me) they've had to concentrate on technical coding at a desk next to the sales guy who was always on the phone, or sit with increasing backache in a dodgy office chair, or in the "contractor’s" position under the A/C duct that everyone avoids!

Employers should support workers in their working environment full stop, wherever it is. Employees can be trusted to know which environment is right for them, to be most productive, and know their mental and socialization needs, but awareness is key. Studies like the afore-mentioned are well-intentioned and helpful in that regard. They raise awareness and have an important part to play in informing workers and employers alike about the hazards (and benefits) of different working locales. However, Linkedin feeds flooded with yet another reductive post stating “remote work gives you mental health issues” really does not help the cause of those of us who need to work remotely (and have healthy social outlets independent of work). Are companies going to be supportive of remote workers, or hire any long-term remote workers, if they think they’re likely to have mental health issues?! Well-intentioned though some research may be, it can backfire, mainly in the way it is used, or abused.

4. AI

You’d have to mention AI in 2026. It’s everywhere else, so why not mention it here too? To be serious though, AI is having fundamental impacts everywhere. This article has already mentioned two such impacts before even dealing with AI in remote work at all!

Anecdotally, AI in IT work practices weakens the case for return-to-office mandates. Despite all the talk of the necessary benefits of office-based social interaction, team building, and the enhanced interpersonal dynamics and productivity from on-site work, in many engineering jobs now all that is undermined by AI. Many engineers now find that most of their day is spent interacting (and speaking) with AI coworkers more than they interact and speak with human ones.

AI has, and continues to be, a rapidly evolving space. Watch this space!

5. The borders for remote are closing fast

Finally, location-based remoting has become more of a thing since the halcyon days of world-wide work-anywhere remoting in 2013. More jobs are listed as Remote (US), Remote (EU), Remote (<your country here?>). In the world borders are becoming harder to cross, not just physically but virtually too. Legal and tax implications in different regions of the world have changed and are becoming more onerous. So even when a fully remote work opportunity exists, more companies are demanding remote workers within the same country of incorporation.

Decisions like the OECD clarification in 2017 on the “permanent establishment” risk of employees in an outside country is one such example of a new regulatory change to the environment facing corporations and remote workers now.

There is also a general geopolitical shift today towards de-globalization, multi-polarism, and economic protectionism, that will only complicate cross-border working further, and make it more likely countries will simply choose to increase employment internally, within their own borders first, even if those citizens are working from home.

6. Conclusion

Sad though it is to say, the working environment has become more hostile for remote working and attitudes to it have become even more regressive since I first wrote about it in 2013. The landscape for remote work is always changing, depending on circumstances (as we have seen during the lockdown), however change is also never guaranteed to be progressive.

That said, work in any industry long enough, and you’ll know that patterns move in cycles, fashions change, and things turn around again. So there's always hope of improvement later.

For now, I just have to remind myself what an achievement it is to have found and held remote work positions for nearly 20 years.

Going forward, in the relative absence of remote progressive employers and roles, it looks like I may have to craft my own job. At least, that way, I know the boss will be remote-friendly!

Good luck out there remoters ...