Commuter data | Travel research sheds light on unexpected trends in the future of work

Last week, HSBC officially confirmed that it planned on moving out of its iconic Canary Wharf skyscraper.

The key reason behind the move? Despite the financial sector’s continued and ardent insistence that remote working is but a blip in the ocean of professional history, the majority of HSBC’s staff are hybrid, meaning that big expensive building is a bit redundant.

HSBC is just one employer of the 120,000 office workers in Canary Wharf, a 128-acre estate in London’s eastern Docklands area that is jointly owned by Canadian asset management firm Brookfield and the Qatar Investment Authority.

However, despite all of the bravado and impressive glass-fronted buildings of the city within the city, those who spend time in the area on any given weekday will attest to how eerily quiet Canary Wharf has been since the dawn of COVID-19 and remote working.