Remote and Hybrid Work for Veterans: Who Gets Access in the UK and US (2026 Data)

Remote and hybrid work are open to veterans, but access depends far more on occupation, education and pay than on military background. In September 2026, 21.9% of people at work in the US teleworked, rising to 35.4% in management and professional jobs and falling to 3.0% in production and transport. In Great Britain, 28% of working adults were hybrid workers in early 2025, with 41% of degree holders against 4% of people with no qualifications. Veterans are over-represented in the trades and transport roles with the least access, so a remote career usually means targeting specific occupations on purpose.

US: who teleworks, September 2026

The BLS, the US government's labour statistics agency, asks every month whether people teleworked or worked at home for pay. In September 2026, 34.7 million of the 158.5 million people at work did so. Just under half of them, 17.0 million, teleworked all of their hours and the rest worked hybrid (BLS, Table 41).

Source: BLS, Table 42, not seasonally adjusted. Education shows the same split. Among people aged 25 and over, 37.8% of those with a bachelor's degree or higher teleworked, against 8.3% of high school graduates with no college (BLS, Table 41).

Where US veterans work, and why it matters

The BLS does not publish telework rates by veteran status. It does publish where veterans work. In 2025, employed veterans were spread across occupation groups like this (BLS, Employment Situation of Veterans 2025, Table 4):

Two points follow. First, 28.0% of employed veterans work in the two groups where telework sits at 3% to 3.5%, compared with 20.7% of non-veterans. Second, veterans are under-represented in sales and office work, one of the larger sources of hybrid jobs. The management and professional share is almost identical, so a veteran with a degree or a professional credential has the same broad access as anyone else.

Government jobs and the federal return to office

In 2025, 24.4% of employed veterans worked in government, against 13.0% of non-veterans (BLS, Table 5). On 20 January 2025 a presidential memorandum directed federal agency heads to "terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis", with exemptions left to each agency head (Federal Register, Return to In-Person Work). Any veteran planning a remote federal career should read each vacancy's telework terms closely and confirm them at interview. State and local government employers set their own policies.

UK: who works hybrid

The Office for National Statistics measured access to hybrid working between January and March 2025, in a release published on 11 June 2025. Overall, 28% of working adults in Great Britain worked hybrid (ONS, Who has access to hybrid working).

Pay mattered inside occupations too. Among managers, directors and senior officials, 56% of those earning £50,000 or more worked hybrid, against 26% of those earning under £20,000. The ONS does not break the figures down by veteran status, so no official UK veteran figure exists.

Your legal right to ask for flexible working in the UK

Every employee can make a request for flexible working, including home or hybrid working, from their first day in a job (GOV.UK, flexible working). You can make two statutory applications in any 12-month period. The application must give the date, state that it is a statutory request, set out the working pattern you want and when it should start, and say whether and when you made a previous application (GOV.UK, applying). The employer must decide within 2 months unless you agree a longer period, and can refuse only for one of eight business reasons, such as extra costs that would damage the business or an inability to reorganise the work among other staff (GOV.UK, after the application).

In the US, remote terms depend on the employer's policy and your offer letter, so get the agreed pattern in writing before you accept.

UK and US side by side

How to target remote or hybrid work after service

The data points to a clear method. Remote access follows the occupation, so pick the occupation first.

1. Map your service role to a high-access family. Logistics planning, procurement, project management, IT support, cyber security, training design, compliance and HR all sit in the management, professional, sales and office groups. Hands-on maintenance, driving and security roles rarely go remote.
2. Close the credential gap. In both countries a degree is the strongest single predictor of hybrid access. A professional certification or a degree apprenticeship can close that gap while you earn.
3. Read the terms, then confirm them. Adverts describe working patterns in different ways. Ask at interview how many office days the team works now and whether that has changed in the past year.
4. Use your UK rights. If a UK role does not offer the pattern you need, you can make a statutory request from your first day in the job.
5. Consider the household. Remote roles can solve the location problem for families that move often. Our guide to military spouse employment covers the schemes built for partners.

Remote work also removes the daily contact that replaces some of the structure of service life. Build regular in-person contact into the week, through a team office day, a professional network or a veterans' group. Our guide to networking without a chain of command covers how to build that network from scratch.