Remote job decline threatens UK disabled workers, study reveals
LANCASHIRE, ENGLAND — A new study reveals a stark contradiction at the heart of the United Kingdom government’s plan to boost employment: while 85% of disabled workers consider homeworking essential when job hunting, the number of fully remote job adverts has plummeted to half its pandemic peak.
Researchers warn that this shortage of suitable roles directly undermines efforts to close the disability employment gap, which currently stands at nearly 29.8 percentage points.
UK remote job decline impacts disabled job seekers
The Inclusive Remote and Hybrid Working Study is a survey of 1,221 disabled workers conducted between June 2023 and June 2025, as part of the largest mixed-methods analysis of its type in the UK, and revealed a strong need for flexible working.
Almost half (46%) of participants indicated their desire to work all the time remotely, with women with disabilities and women caring for someone with a disability showing the most preference towards fully home-based jobs.
Moreover, three-quarters (79%) of those polled indicated they would not apply for a job that was not remotely available, indicating that flexibility has become an absolute demand among a sizable segment of the disabled population.
Nevertheless, data from the international recruiting platform Adzuna indicates that the market for these jobs is shrinking rapidly.
Fully remote jobs, only 4.3% of job advertisements in the UK in the 2024/25 period, a terrifying drop compared to the 8.7% high of 2020/21. The increase in hybrid opportunities has also come to a halt, and it now stands at only 13.5% of vacancies.
While the combined total of remote and hybrid jobs (17.8%) remains higher than the pre-pandemic level of 3.1%, researchers from Lancaster University, the Work Foundation, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Universal Inclusion warn that the sharp decline in fully remote positions is creating a critical barrier.
Health and career benefits of remote work for disabled staff
The study highlights that for many disabled people, remote work is not merely a matter of convenience but a fundamental determinant of their ability to work at all.
The advantages are obvious: 64% of fully remote disabled employees said that their physical health was positively affected by working remotely, whereas only 31% of employees who worked fewer than half the time remotely said so.
According to a study by Paula Holland of Lancaster University, “Our findings indicate disabled employees gain significant benefits including improved mental and physical health, better work-life balance and increased productivity.”
“However, companies mandating people to return to the office has seen remote-only opportunities plummet and this could prevent some disabled workers from returning and staying in work.”
“At a time when the Government wants to get people working, disabled workers report that access to suitable homeworking roles can be the difference between working or not working.”
A personal testimony in the report highlights the terrible impact of the declining employment landscape. Rebecca, a Merseyside-based business manager with ADHD who was seeking a new position, took over 20 months to find a new job and eventually accepted a permanent home-based job contract with a reduced salary, thinking she would not secure another job at her level.
“I got an occupational health recommendation for permanent homeworking. The lack of external disruption allows me to better manage my condition,” she said.
In the same manner, a young professional in London, Vera, with multiple sclerosis, claimed that remote working allowed her to continue working. As she notes, “Remote work has made it possible for me to stay in employment — without it I couldn’t work.”
Nevertheless, she finds herself stranded in her current situation, with limited availability of fully remote positions as the only options she can reasonably consider to address her cognitive exhaustion.
Urgent flexible work policies needed to boost UK employment
The findings directly challenge the UK Government’s ambition to increase the employment rate to 80% by getting two million more people into work.
With disabled people already representing a quarter of the workforce, researchers warn that cutting welfare without addressing job accessibility is futile.
This echoes a recent House of Lords inquiry, which called on ministers to confirm whether remote and hybrid working are being prioritized in initiatives supporting disabled people back into work, particularly as a separate government study found that 25% of people currently unable to work could do so if given a remote option.
In response to the crisis, the study’s authors are calling for urgent government intervention. Their recommendations include expanding access to remote jobs by making flexible work a core component of employment strategies and encouraging employers to advertise flexibility upfront on the Department for Work and Pensions‘ “Find a Job” portal.
Rebecca Florisson, Principal Analyst at the Work Foundation, stated that for many disabled workers, “homeworking isn’t a ‘nice to have’ – it’s essential to be able to enter into, and remain in work.
“If the Government is serious about getting Britain working, it must make sure the right jobs are available by expanding access to flexible work. Threats to cut disabled people’s welfare will not support them into work if the jobs they need simply aren’t there,” she added.
