Eurofound: one in four EU employees works hybrid, but 22% have almost no say over when or where
Eurofound published The shift to hybrid working: Management challenges on 27 August 2026, drawing on the European Working Conditions Survey 2024. Around one in four employees across the EU now works in a hybrid arrangement. The finding that matters is what sits underneath that headline: hybrid work is not one thing, and the amount of control it comes with varies enormously.
Among employees in hybrid arrangements, 48% have substantial autonomy over both when and where they work. A further 17% can choose where they work but have limited control over their working time, and 13% have flexibility over their hours but not their location. For the remaining 22%, hybrid work is controlled – they have little real say over either. Access is also concentrated at the top of the occupational ladder: 56% of managers work in hybrid arrangements, against 1% of employees in elementary occupations.
Why this matters
If you are negotiating a hybrid arrangement in Europe, the number of days is the less important half of the conversation. Eurofound’s data shows the split that actually tracks how people experience the job is whether you control the timing and the location, or whether your employer schedules both and calls it flexibility. Ask specifically: can I choose which days, and can I shift my hours? Two days at home that your manager assigns is a different job from two days you choose, and the survey puts numbers on the difference. Among employees in fully flexible hybrid arrangements, 93% say they are treated fairly, against 83% in controlled arrangements. Among supervisors, 38% in controlled hybrid setups report stress at work always or most of the time, against 21% in location-flexible ones.
Context
This report is the completed research behind work Eurofound trailed earlier in 2026, and it is the first version to carry full EWCS 2024 statistics rather than a literature review. It lands alongside national data pointing the same way: Ireland’s Central Statistics Office reported on 20 August that home working fell 2.2% year on year in Q2 2026, with the decline concentrated entirely in majority-of-the-week home working while occasional home working rose. The pattern across both datasets is a settling rather than a collapse, with the terms of hybrid work being renegotiated in the employer’s favour in a substantial minority of cases.
What to watch
The European Commission’s second-phase social partner consultation on the Quality Jobs Act closes on 28 September 2026, with a proposal expected in the final quarter of the year. Its scope covers algorithmic management and AI at work, health and safety, subcontracting chains, fair transitions and enforcement. For how flexible-working rights differ country by country, see our country guides.