UK Dominates the US in Remote Working Job Battle, Study Reveals

With the Coronavirus sweeping across the world with devastating effects, could the virus force more Americans to work from home to stop the spread of the virus?

It seems so. More people are embracing remote working as the future.

According to a study by RingCentral, there are 46,119 jobs offering flexible or remote working in their job descriptions across the US - meaning many employers are actually already prepared for their employees to work from home.

But which US state is the most prepared? 

California takes the top spot with 1,410 opportunities, followed by Texas and New York in 2nd and 3rd with 1,356 and 1,122, respectively. 

The RingCentral study also explored remote working options in the UK, revealing that the UK has the most flexible working opportunities overall of the two nations.

Using the world’s most popular job board, Indeed.com, the study collected all of the listed remote working jobs to reveal how the UK and US stacks up, when it comes to remote working opportunities.

In the UK, there were 87,804 remote working jobs listed, compared to just 46,119 job opportunities in the US. Incredibly, the UK had 90% more jobs than the US offering remote working options.

Remote working = lower salary? The UK inches ahead of the US with remote working salaries.

• In the UK, 2% of remote working jobs pay more than £50k annually,
• compared to the US, where the equivalent salary is offered to just 1% of remote workers.
• However, the majority of remote working job roles fell into the lowest salary brackets.
• In the UK, 38% of the remote working jobs found were paid less than £19,999 annually.
• In the US the salaries offered were still amongst the lowest; 74% of remote working jobs paid less than $30,000.
• However, the US beats the UK for full-time remote working jobs, the US offers full-time contracts to 71% of remote working jobs, compared to the UK who offers just 40%.

Both results still offer an increased layer of security and stability for remote workers.

Remote Working Map of the UK

Location, Location, Location

Whilst it is true that remote working can be done from anywhere, many of the opportunities we found listed their head-office location.

• South = 58,037 (66%)
• North = 16,388 (18.6%)
• Midlands = 7,923 (9%)
• True Remote* = 5,456 (6.2%)

*True remote means the job role can be done from anywhere, without any office-based contact.

Companies based in the South of the UK offer the most remote working opportunities, followed by the North. 43% are based out of London, 11% Channel Islands, and 6% in Manchester.

Top 5 Remote Working Jobs in the UK

Here are the type of roles in the UK that are most likely to offer remote working:

1. Business Development = 104
2. Sales Exec = 36
3. Account Management = 32
4. Software Engineers =31
5. Lettings Agent = 31

Top Five Companies for Remote Working Jobs in the UK

These are the five companies who are advertising the most jobs with remote working benefits.

1. WSP = 575
2. Revolut = 220
3. PwC = 121
4. Network Rail = 103
5. Eaton = 98

Remote Working Map of the US
 

Seniority of Remote Working Jobs in the US

In the US, it seems that mid-level and entry-level jobs have the most scope for remote working with 41% of jobs falling into these two categories.

• Entry Level = 37%
• Mid Level = 33%
• Senior Level = 7%

This is a promising sign, meaning that younger graduates or those starting to become mid-level candidates could benefit from the most flexible options around.

Top 5 States for Remote Working Jobs in the US

The majority of remote working jobs in our study had head offices located in these five states, with both East Coast and West Coast appearing on the list.

1. New York: 1,122 (2.4%)
2. Chicago: 941 (2%)
3. San Francisco: 815 (1.7%)
4. Los Angeles: 595 (1.2%)
5. Atlanta: 575 (1.2%)

Top 5 Companies for Remote Working Jobs in the US
 

In the US, these are the five companies offering the most jobs with flexible or remote working within their job descriptions.

1. WW (Weight Watchers) = 1,420
2. Care.com = 1,021
3. Eaton = 959
4. Stryker = 770
5. Madison Allied = 542

Methodology

The study uses data from the US and UK versions of Indeed to compile the number of remote working jobs available at the time of writing. The data was also available by city (in the UK) and state (in the US).

To be counted in the study, the job had to have ‘remote working’ listed in the description at least once.

The data was correct as of January 1st 2020:

• In the UK, there were 87,804 job opportunities listed on Indeed.com which offered remote working as part of the job description.
• In the US, there were 46,119 job opportunities listed on Indeed.com which offered remote working as part of the job description.

The study also used Google Adwords data to discover how many people in the UK and the US were searching for remote working jobs and Google Trends data to show which cities and states were searching the most.