Working in offices was the norm for millions across the UK until the Covid-19 pandemic, but no longer; the emergence of working from home out of necessity has subsequently morphed into a work-life imperative that has prompted many companies to embrace the concept of remote and hybrid work as a permanent feature of employment.

In Aberdeen, however, this may have manifested itself somewhat differently to many other cities. While some places are dominated by white-collar service industries, the Granite City has long been an outlier due to its position as Europe’s unofficial energy capital.

That has sometimes meant the city’s economy performing differently to the national or even international picture, such as its strong performance when the rest of the economy was crawling out of recession in the early 2010s thanks to high oil prices.

However, things change. With the future set to bring a transition away from oil and gas, Aberdeen’s economy needs to diversify. Even as the government recently announced a new round of North Sea oil and gas licences, the message from local MSPs and campaigners was that Aberdeen needs to look beyond fossil fuels.

Many of those expressing such views have argued that the benefits of oil and gas have bypassed many communities. What has enabled some to enjoy a high standard of living has had no positive effect on others and it has even been argued that the reliance on North Sea resources has led to other areas of economic activity, like tourism, being neglected.

If such considerations have a significant impact on efforts to visualise the future of Aberdeen in a post-oil world, there could indeed be a lot of effort focused on diversifying the economy, even if some of that will be directed toward different forms of energy like offshore wind or wave power.

This could have a major impact on the world of work in the city, one in which more people undertake ‘normal’ desk jobs and far fewer spend their working days wearing hard hats while standing on rigs out at sea.

However, such a transition poses a challenge; a small city with limited office space cannot suddenly accommodate a huge rise in people working this way.  

Even the oil and gas companies doing well exceed the capacity of Aberdeen’s economic infrastructure. In addition to limited office space, there are only so many hotel rooms. As the Herald Scotland noted, a major beneficiary of this ‘Aberdeen overspill’ has been Dundee, as firms send their staff to stay there and then bus them back up the coast.

Similarly, it is not hard to imagine that Aberdeen-based companies could increasingly end up locating their office staff in Dundee too, not least as they could draw on the latter city’s student talent pool.

However, there is an alternative to that. Those who prefer to live in Aberdeen could, with the right home office equipment, embrace the new home working revolution with gusto.

Indeed, in an age when everyone knows how to use Zoom, it could be that not only will those whose company is based in Aberdeen be able to work from their home in the city; but so too could people whose head office is in other cities. If you can work from anywhere, why not do so from a well-equipped Aberdonian home?