Businesses are being encouraged to allow their employees the chance to work from home as recent research has revealed how much time is spent commuting each year.

According to the study by the TUC, employees spend nearly 200 hours – or five weeks – a year travelling to and from their place of work.

Men were shown to spend an average of 26 per cent more time commuting, amounting to 219 hours a year, rather than the 174 hours a year that women spend commuting.

However, in London, this gender gap is much smaller, with women working in the capital having longer average commute times than men who work in every other part of the UK.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, commented on the data: “Unnecessary long commutes are frustrating and expensive for staff, and bad for business too.

“Smarter working must be part of the modern economy. Staff want greater access to flexible and high quality home-working and employers need to do more to provide it.”

He added that there was also a chance of women being discriminated against in employment due to the fact that they still bear the greatest share of childcare responsibilities, possibly putting them off long commuting times necessary to access the best-paid or most desirable jobs.