Chats around the water cooler are becoming a thing of the past for more workers as rising costs and a desire to reduce commuting persuade businesses to abandon traditional offices.

According to new figures from O2, which surveyed 530 small businesses, 50 per cent of companies it contacted do not work in formal offices. Of that 50 per cent, 24 per cent had offices but worked remotely or from home, while 18 per cent had made the transition in the past eight months. The research found that almost two thirds of companies still working from fixed business premises were considering giving them up within the year.

The main reasons behind the shift are the credit crunch, the desire for flexible hours and better technology, according to the survey.

Cascade, a London creative design agency, has abandoned its fixed office, saving £4,000 a month. Ben Reid, a partner in Cascade, said: “To our clients, nothing changed – we still had the same e-mail addresses and our landline phone number even remained the same. However, we had in fact completely given up the office. My business partner and I now work from our respective homes.”

Freya Sykes, 34, has gone full circle. Five years ago, she and her husband, Steven Bletsoe, 33, set up Homefinder UK, a property-finding business, from their home in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. As the company expanded, they moved to offices in Leeds, only to return to Wakefield last year to cut out the commute. While her husband continues to run Homefinder, she is setting up a new company from home selling traditional Yorkshire toffee.

Telecoms companies have seen a surge in business subscribers working from home. Graeme Good, head of direct channels for small and medium-sized enterprises for Orange, said: “We’re seeing small business customers moving away from a fixed business environment. With mobile broadband and mobile e-mail, location is becoming less and less important.”

Mark Dixon, chief executive of Regus, the serviced office provider, said that businesses want more flexible accommodation and that about two thirds of its 400,000 clients no longer have permanent offices, against about 5 per cent a decade ago. He said: “There is a huge trend towards people working flexibly . . . The main enabler is technology, which has given us the ability to be able to work from anywhere we happen to be. The next driver is the cost of commuting. The credit crunch means companies are doing everything they can to reduce costs, and rents are the highest.”

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