A rush to beat the UK stamp duty deadline on 30 June caused a 200% increase in demand for removals services according to online marketplace AnyVan.
In addition to the rapid increase in the demand the business has also found that the distance people are travelling has increased by 54%, from an average of 32 miles to 50 miles a home move.
The volume that people are taking with them has also increased, from an average of 16m3 in 2020 to 30m3 in 2021 – an increase of 92% in size. This demonstrates that big moves are happening across the country.
Angus Elphinstone, CEO and founder of AnyVan commented: “In the past year, as offices closed and more people worked from home or were placed on furlough, we witnessed a strong current of people moving out from cities into rural areas or towns, whether permanently or temporarily. Now that offices are back open employers and employees face a conundrum as to whether they help the working from home trend continue. At the moment our data shows us that we haven’t seen the trend invert. In fact, our data shows there has been a significant decrease in people moving from rural to cities at the start of 2021 compared with 2019. That is a massive change.”
However, these moves haven’t just been from city to city. There have been a significant number of people moving out from the cities of the UK to towns or rural areas. AnyVan estimates that 67,000 people have moved out of cities to towns or rural areas and just 30,000 have moved in. This is despite companies and employees preparing for a return to the office in July.
“Many companies are phasing a return to the office and there are many employees that either want to go back in full-time or with some working from home involved,” said Angus. “This means that we may well see more people returning to the cities, but it will be a gradual move and one we may not see start to gather pace until the summer when high streets are fully open and the vaccine programme has given more confidence to people living their lives in more crowded cities.”