In 2020, Laura, who worked in talent acquisition for a global tech company, moved to London with her husband, despite the fact her company was based in Dublin. “At the time, there was no expectation of needing to be in an office,” she tells me. “90 per cent of the people I worked with and hired for were scattered around Europe and the Middle East”. None of her managers batted an eyelid about her location, she says. She was even promoted during that period.
A year or two later, when pregnant with her first baby, a serious crime happened right by her house. It was enough to make her seriously reconsider leaving the capital. Soon after Laura, her husband and their six-month old baby moved to Bath. Still on maternity leave and having a proven track record of remote work, she didn’t even consider that her company might have an opinion about her new home.
Laura and her husband then separated – leaving her, she says, as a single mum in a new city with no weekday childcare help available outside of nursery hours. Then her company brought in an office in-person mandate. “We were given three months’ notice of a mandate for two days a week [in office]. Getting to London even one day a week was impossible and they were insisting on at least two”.
