Zscaler data provides insights on one year of remote working

Since then, the majority of UK workers have had to adapt to the peculiarities of a remote working life, and many businesses have been considering whether an en masse return to physical offices makes sense financially, logistically and for the wellbeing of their workforces.

Every day, the [zscaler.com]Zscaler security cloud processes 150 billion transactions, giving a unique view into how organisations employees are connecting to their applications in the cloud or the corporate data centre and what they're connecting to, when their traffic is protected by the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange. Zscaler is today releasing new data from its Working from Anywhere Trends Dashboard to reveal how the UK’s remote working tendencies have changed over the past 12 months compared to other European nations, and which apps have generated the most traffic.

The shift to remote work

Before the severity of the Covid threat became apparent, Zscaler data shows that the vast majority of European workers were based in-office.

In January 2020:

·        87% of UK traffic through the Zscaler cloud was in-office versus 13% remote

·        85% of Spanish traffic was in-office versus 15% remote

·        Italy (84% vs 16%)

·        The Netherlands (88% vs 12%)

·        The most office-based workers were found in Germany, where 95% of all traffic was in-office

In March 2020, there was a significant shift, but not perhaps as severe as one might expect:

·        In the UK, only 41% of traffic was remote, and 59% still remained in-office

·        Germany became more remote also, but continued its majority in-office trend (25% remote vs 75% in-office)

·        Given Italy was one of the first European nations to be so hit hard by the pandemic, the comparison is more stark, with 69% of traffic moving remote and 31% remaining in-office. 

The peak of the UK’s remote working traffic has come in early 2021, when remote traffic was around 56 or 57%. Germany’s peak remote traffic (39%) also occurred in January 2021.

Ismail Elmas, Geo Vice President International, Zscaler said “This data demonstrates how different countries’ Working from Anywhere abilities have evolved based on the impact COVID has, and is having, on their populations. It will be interesting to see how the different countries’ traffic patterns will react now that we’re starting to come out of lockdown, particularly as companies have now accelerated their transformation efforts to enable staff to work from anywhere securely. Circumstances over the last year have forced businesses to adopt this new way of working, now that the pressure is reducing, will they adopt these new working habits permanently because of their investments into cloud technology?”