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Surrey is England's top home office hotspot, research shows
Monday 20th February 2012, by Sam Pickard
Surrey is England and Wales' top hotspot for home offices, new research has determined.
A study of the 174 principal authority areas in the two countries has discovered that the area contains the highest number of people operating from home, with 27,000 using their house as a base for their work, according to figures from Smart Growth Analytics.
It has been found that nearly five per cent of Surrey's total number of employees work in home offices, marking a significant increase when compared with England and Wales' average of 5,000.
Just under two-thirds (64 per cent) of the top 25 home office hotspots are situated in the greater south-east region, even though the area only represents just over one-third (36 per cent) of all England and Wales' principal authorities.
Hampshire was second place in the list, while Hertfordshire, Kent and Essex made up the top five.
Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, West Sussex, Devon and Cambridgeshire completed the top ten locations. The south-west also had three of its destinations in the 25 (Devon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire).
Other locations represented in the top 25 are the West Midlands, the East Midlands, North Yorkshire, Yorkshire and the Humber, and Lancashire.
Jim Plunkett-Cole, principal analyst at Smart Growth Analytics, stated: "The findings demonstrate the economic importance of home offices in regional economies across the country.
"They begin to help us understand the increasingly important home-based economic functionality of the more rural and residential areas outside of London, and particularly the Home Counties and Shire Counties across England and Wales."
Home working will be assisted by the roll-out of new broadband packages, so Virgin Media's recent work could prove to be especially important.
The provider's superfast broadband deal is now available in more than ten million homes, meaning that the organisation's aim to provide 100Mb broadband to more premises is now ahead of schedule.
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