12 May 2025
Remote Work: A New Normal in the UK Remember when working from home was a rare perk? Now it’s simply how work gets done for a large chunk of the UK workforce. Remote and hybrid work models, sparked by the pandemic, have endured as a long-term transformation. As of early 2025, around 41% of UK workers are operating outside the office at least part-time (about 16% fully remote and 25% hybrid). This new normal brings benefits like flexibility and access to a wider talent pool, but also new challenges, especially in the realm of IT support. To keep teams aligned and productive, organisations are leveraging cloud collaboration platforms. Clearly, supporting a dispersed workforce is now a core part of doing business. The question is: how do we keep all those remote workers online, secure, and productive?
Providing IT support for remote employees isn’t just “office IT but over Zoom”—it’s a different ballgame altogether. Both remote workers and business owners are discovering that tech support needs have changed in this work-from-anywhere era. Here are a few of the new challenges that make remote IT support different from the old office-bound model:
In an office, everyone shares a fast, secure network. Now, each remote employee depends on their home internet, which might cut out or crawl. IT teams often have to troubleshoot patchy Wi-Fi or slow VPN connections from afar. A worker in rural Wales and one in central London won’t have the same connectivity, and that inconsistent bandwidth can bottleneck access to company systems.
Office environments have firewalls and on-site security; home offices might have just a basic router. Unsecured home networks and personal devices expand the cyber threat landscape. A laptop used on a café Wi-Fi or a personal tablet with outdated antivirus can expose company data to risks that wouldn’t exist behind the office firewall. IT support now has to worry about protecting each user’s little “branch office.”
Perhaps the biggest adjustment is the lack of in-person help. In the office, an IT technician can walk over to your desk when something breaks. Remote workers don’t have that luxury. Troubleshooting happens via phone, chat, or screen-share, which can be slower and more frustrating for everyone. Not all employees are tech-savvy, so a simple fix can turn into a lengthy email chain or remote session. Business owners feel this too—it’s harder to get everyone back to work quickly when support can’t physically touch the device.
These challenges can lead to downtime and headaches if not addressed. An employee struggling with a flaky internet connection or a VPN error can’t be productive, and a small IT issue can snowball when your team is scattered. It’s different IT, indeed. So, how do we adapt support to this new reality? With the right strategies and partners in place, remote IT problems don’t have to derail your day.
Among the top challenges of remote work, cybersecurity stands out as a critical priority. When your team is spread out, your IT security perimeter isn’t just the office walls—it’s every laptop, home Wi-Fi, and cloud app your staff use. Business owners worry, with good reason: nearly one in four UK SMEs now cites remote working as a major cybersecurity concern. The threats are growing more sophisticated every day, and a single weak link, like an unprotected personal device or a phishing email clicked at home, can put an entire company at risk.
Companies are trying to respond. A recent UK survey showed that 52% of small businesses have started using VPNs to secure remote access, 48% are providing training on safe remote working, and 46% have set specific remote access security policies —highlighting the growing importance of IT support small businesses rely on to stay secure and compliant.
These are good practices, aligning with expert recommendations to use tools like multi-factor authentication and encrypted connections for all remote logins. In other words, many organisations are flying blind when it comes to securing those home offices.
This is where robust endpoint management and expert guidance become critical. Every remote laptop or phone needs the same level of protection as devices inside headquarters. That means business-grade antivirus, regular patching, firewall configurations, encryption, and user education—all tailored for a distributed environment.
It’s a tall order for stretched in-house IT teams or non-technical business owners. A proactive approach helps: monitoring devices for threats and unusual activity, enforcing security updates, and training employees to spot scams can prevent incidents before they happen.
Remote work has transformed the way UK businesses operate, but it also demands a new kind of IT support—flexible, secure, and always available. From securing home networks to managing cloud tools, the challenges are unique but solvable with the right partner. Renaissance provides expert, proactive support tailored to today’s hybrid workforce. With their help, your business can stay productive, protected, and future-ready—no matter where your team works. It’s different IT—and it’s time to handle it differently.
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