Summary Bullets:

• Movers Index gives quarterly UK movement data collected by O2 Motion and by polling users to provide insight into behavior of the British public and businesses.

• More than 114,000 people visited central London (England) to be part of the Coronation parade, delivering a boost to business, matched by similar behavior nationwide.

Virgin Media O2 Business’s new Movers Index combines aggregated and anonymized UK movement data collected from its O2 Motion proposition (Virgin Media O2 Business O2 Motion may have been too much of a tongue twister), combined with polling of businesses and consumers ‘to provide quarterly trends and insights into the behavior’ of the British public and UK businesses.

The first set of results has shown that footfall has been on the up in the first quarter of the year, even during the ‘cost of living crisis,’ and was up by as much as 11% on the high street and in shopping centers quarter on quarter. This is reflected across major British towns and cities. Likely drivers are the post COVID-19 upsurge as people seek to make up for lost time with any money they have saved during various phases of lockdown. The additional Coronation Bank Holiday will have helped some sectors such as retail, hospitality, and travel but will have been a cost to other verticals such as manufacturing due to lost production.

The Movers Index’s polling also found that 51% of businesses predicted that the Coronation would bring in more revenue than the Platinum Jubilee in 2022, with over half (53%) making plans to increase staffing levels to meet increased customer footfall. The study also found a sustained return to commuting, with three-day hybrid working weeks becoming the norm amongst white-collar workers. This once again underlines the value in hybrid working solutions from telecoms services providers. Despite multiple attempts and sluggish economic growth, a substantial proportion of the workforce has overcome the initial challenges of working from home, and now want to keep the benefits of a more even work-life balance – and the majority of them control the whip hand in negotiations as the professional services talent market remains tight.

Interestingly, the return to more frequent commuting was led by younger workers (18 to 24-year-olds), reflecting both their need to network in the early stages of their careers, the enthusiasm to return to the vibrancy of cities, and the fact that their living arrangements often do not afford them the same dedicated home-office advantages as many older workers – there’s only so much time you want to be sat on the floor, on your bed, or at the kitchen table.

Offerings like this can help to provide insight into the more nuanced future of work at a macro level for employers, politicians, and enterprises. The stats can also help with business planning across key verticals where flexibility to changing customer demand has a direct impact on staffing and logistical resourcing. O2 Motion is not unique in the market, but it is a good example of how technology can be combined with customer research to provide insight for business decision makers.