Working from home should be the norm and we will look back on commuting and office-based work as archaic in years to come, says the Telework Association.
The association, which promotes working from home, says that millions of us are doing jobs that could be carried out just as well at home.
Development director for Telework, Shirley Borrett, who lives and works in a motorhome, says, "I can't help feeling that our descendants will look back at us and think, 'What on earth were they thinking of?'
Most businesses are increasingly looking at letting their staff work from home – for part of the week at least. BT, the pioneer of homeworking in Britain in the 1980's, now has 65,000 flexible workers, 10,000 of which do not come in to the office at all.
According to the official Labour Force Survey, in the spring of last year there were 691,000 British home workers (working mainly in their own homes, using both a phone and a computer) versus 582,000 three years before.
But Ms Borrett feels that those numbers are underestimated. In 2008, a survey for the CBI found 46 per cent of businesses allowing their staff to work from home, up from just 11 per cent in 2004.
Melanie Pinola, who writes about home working for About.com, says the jobs that can be done remotely range from accountancy to telemarketing, via financial analysis, translation, data entry, graphic design, illustration, insurance, media buying, speech-writing, research, sales, travel agency, stockbroking, website design, writing and editing. 
