Four Scots Cities in Top 50 Best Places to Work Remotely

Michael Edgar

23 March 2023, 03.10pm

Four Scottish cities break into the top 50 of 100 best places in the UK to work from home, with fast broadband being the key metric for success.

The top 100 list was made by HR software provider Ciphr as an analysis on the latest data from Ofcom’s Connected Nations data.

The towns and cities were ranked against each other across four metrics: the proportion of residential premises with access to superfast broadband, the proportion of residential premises with access to ultrafast broadband, the proportion of residential premises with access to full-fibre internet, median download speed (Mbps), and Median upload speed (Mbps).

Edinburgh came in 12th place with 98% of homes having access to super fast broadband, and impressive median download speeds of 80 Mbps. Dundee placed 18th, with slightly higher superfast broadband access, but lower median upload and download speeds than Edinburgh.

Aberdeen (34th) beat out Glasgow (35th) narrowly by offering more full fibre coverage by a wide margin. However, Glasgow’s upload and download speeds were still superior to Aberdeen.

The top five towns in the UK were Hull, Belfast, Coventry, Milton Keynes, and Peterborough. All showing high coverage of superfast broadband, but Hull dominated the charts with median upload speeds of 53 Mbps and median download speeds of 185 Mbps.

The bottom five towns on the top 100 list were Chichester, with only a third of remote workers having access to ultrafast broadband, followed by Winchester, Canterbury, Caerphilly, and Gateshead.

The list comes on the backdrop of around 44% of people now working from home in a hybrid or full-time capacity, according to the Office for National Statistics. The high number points to a renewed focus for Scotland to provide its workers with adequate internet, made available to all communities in the UK.

Increasing the reach of quality broadband connections may also have a knock-on effect for the labour market, according to a report, which says increased and updated broadband coverage could allow 431,000 new workers to enter the workforce by 2026. This would give an estimated £72 billion boost to the economy by 2030, says the report.