Jobs in London are less than half as likely to be advertised as offering flexibility as those advertised in Scotland, according to a report launched this week. 

The Timewise Flexible Jobs Index, by flexibility experts Timewise, found that despite 14.1m people wanting flexible working, only 6.2% of jobs with a salary of more than £20k were advertised as offering workers the opportunity to work flexibly. However, the 6.2% headline figure in the report disguises important differences, depending on job location, sector and salary.

Karen Mattison, chief executive at Timewise, told the audience at the launch of the report at Google’s London headquarters that the result of the mismatch was “a talent bottleneck”. “People who want to move jobs end up stuck in their existing roles because they don’t have a flexible job to go to,” she said.

However, further details in the report revealed that the chances of jobseekers being able to find a job where there was some flexibility in where, how and when the work was carried out varied enormously.   

Jobs in London were the least likely to be advertised as flexible with only 3% offering this possibility. In contrast, 7% of advertised vacancies in Scotland and in Northern Ireland offered flexibility.  

John Philpott, director of consultancy The Jobs Economist, and one of the panel members at the launch, said that one likely factor for the disparity was the size of  the public sector workforce in Scotland. Traditionally the public sector offers employees more opportunities than the private sector for job flexibility, such as part-time working and job sharing.  

One in five health/social care jobs were advertised as offering flexibility, the highest for all job role types. This compares with only 2% of jobs at director or management level. 

Similarly, while 6% of jobs in the £20k to £29,999 salary were flexible, this fell to just 3% for jobs paying between £50k to £99,999.

Helena Morrissey, founder of the 30% Club, a group of companies set up with the aim of increasing the representation of women on boards, and CEO of Newton Investment Management, described the results of the research as “a call for arms to companies”.

The report, also identified a stark difference between the 96% of employers who say they offer some form of flexible working in terms of how, when and where employees can work, and the 6.2% of jobs that are actually advertised as offering flexibility. 

Morrissey added that there was an inconsistency between what employers say and what they do. “We say ‘we want to go out and hire the brightest and the best’ but we are not living and breathing that in terms of how we hire.”

And she vowed to change practices at her own company, telling the audience: “I think we should routinely advertise our vacancies as offering flexible working.”  

Mattison said a big issue was that candidates were afraid to broach the subject of flexible working at interview for fear that it might damage their chances of getting the job.  

Lynn Rattigan, chief operating officer at EY, UK & Ireland, said it was important to “remove the stigma of flexible working” felt by candidates. She said that EY encouraged recruiters “to think about the opportunities for offering flexible working”.

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