More than half of Australia’s full-time employees now spend part of their week working from home, with the proportion sharply rising in the cities.

New research from Roy Morgan has shown that more than 6.7 million Australians, or 46 per cent of the total employed population, work from home at least some of the time.

That proportion rises to 51 per cent for full-time employees, and falls to 36 per cent for part-time employees.

“These latest Roy Morgan findings clearly show that ‘work-from-home’ arrangements have become a permanent and distinct feature of Australia’s employment sector,” Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine said.

The trend is concentrated in the capital cities, with a majority of workers in Sydney (55 per cent), Melbourne (52 per cent), and Canberra (51 per cent) working from home.

That falls to below half in Brisbane (43 per cent), Adelaide, (44 per cent), Perth, (40 per cent), and Hobart (45 per cent).

In regional Australia, work-from-home rates are noticeably lower, with Queensland (40 per cent) having the highest level, followed by NSW (39 per cent), Victoria (36 per cent), the Northern Territory (34 per cent), South Australia (33 per cent) and Western Australia (31 per cent).

Smaller workplaces, especially solo workers or the self-employed, naturally have the highest working from home rates (55 per cent), while smaller businesses have the lowest (38 per cent for workplaces with five to 24 employees).

The industries with the most people working from home include finance and insurance (66 per cent), communications (61 per cent), property and business services (57 per cent), and public administration and defence (56 per cent).

By contrast, just 31 per cent of retail employees work from home, with other low-level sectors including recreation and personal services (37 per cent) and transport and storage (38 per cent).

Income also makes a difference, with work-from-home rates peaking at 64 per cent for those with a wage of $300,000 or more.

“Gaining an in-depth understanding of the nuances surrounding current ‘working from home’ trends across different cities, industries, workplace sizes and income bands is vital to understand as businesses, employees, and policymakers adapt to a rapidly changing workforce landscape,” Levine said.