[hackissimo123]

I'm applying to jobs now (in the UK) and I'm yet to speak to a single company that plans on a full return to the pre-pandemic normal. Everyone is either staying 100% remote indefinitely, or they're hoping to adopt a hybrid approach like what you describe.

It's a bad time to own city-centre commercial real estate.

[ghaff]

For most people who have proven they can productively work remote, it's sort of a no-brainer. Even if they don't want to move to the mountains or otherwise go 100% remote, most people will at least want the flexibility to commute fewer days and spend some days at home/out-of-the-office for all sorts of reasons. (As well as more flexibility in how close they need to be to an office.)

[pydry]

This wasn't my experience. Most companies I talked to planned on having 1-2 days in the office per week. A few were planning on 100% remote.

I bet a lot aren't being open about how remote they will be also, to avoid putting people off.

[ghaff]

I expect a lot of companies just don't really know how things are going to play out right now. So, unless you know that a position can be 100% remote for all time, the conservative thing to do is to basically say "You're going to have to live somewhere that allows you to commute in a couple of days a week." You don't want to put yourself in a position where you've told someone they can live anywhere in the country they want and then, in nine months, tell them "Just kidding. You need to move to London."

[hackissimo123]

That doesn't contradict what I said. "Remote-first" was more common in my experience too than "100% remote".

[vidarh]

Notably, the market is such that a skilled candidate going in and explicitly negotiating how remote they want to be has a good shot at getting it approved. At least if aiming for e.g. 80% remote.

It's also notable that now being someone with longer experience in working remote - especially managing remote teams - has suddenly become a very valuable skill.