Yorkshire has the fastest internet speed in the country

Many large businesses in the UK including PwC, ASDA, UBS, KPMG and Adobe have shared their intent to move to a hybrid of model of working permanently.

But which major cities in the UK offer the best lifestyles for the flexible workforce? Gazprom Energy, the business energy supplier, ranked each major UK city on the following: cost of living, wellbeing (average ratings of life satisfaction, happiness, and anxiety), commuting time (minutes), average salary (£), average internet speed (mbps), and coffee shops per capita.

Once rating was complete, Gazprom created an overall score called the Hybrid Working Score (out of 100) for each city. They then ranked the cities from best to worst.

Key findings from the study include:

• London is the UK’s worst city for hybrid working (35/100), despite employers in the capital being among the first to instigate hybrid working and offering the most flexible policies
• York is the best city for hybrid working (64/100), helped along by a moderate cost of living, a respectable wellbeing standard and a lower average commute
• Surprisingly, Hull and St Albans enjoy the highest average internet speeds (both 138 Mbps) in the country by far, helping employees to get the job done – while those in Worcester (47 Mbps) and Exeter (50 Mbps) have to put up with the worst
• The worst commutes employees can expect when travelling between home and the office belong to London (avg. 66 min), Nottingham (41 min) and Leeds (40 min)
• Yorkshire has the fastest average internet speed overall at 85 Mbps, followed closely by the East at 82 Mbps. Northern Ireland and Wales tie on being the regions with the slowest internet connections, at 61 Mbps.
• Regionally, Yorkshire is also the best part of the UK for hybrid workers, followed by the North West – with Wales and London being the worst.