The consulting giants new ‘Work Unbound’ model also allows employees to pick their hours flexibly over the course of Monday to Sunday.

Staff can opt to work some of their contracted hours over a weekend rather than solely across the traditional working week.

Working remotely will become a permanent option and UK employees can choose their place of work for up to three days per week, with two days spent in one of the Arup offices

The model follows pre-pandemic trials in offices across the globe including Liverpool.

It found that four in five people flexed their hours at some point during the pilot while over a third chose to work at the weekend at some point.

The office still played a key role with over half of staff choosing to work from the office during the pilot for five days per week.

Jerome Frost, Chair of Arup’s UK, India, Middle East and Africa region, said: “Building significant flexibility into our colleagues’ working lives is something we’ve been experimenting with since before the pandemic.

“With the opportunity to flex working hours over the course of a seven day week, we‘re empowering our members to find a working pattern that allows them to be at their personal best while delivering high quality work for clients.

“As an independent company held in trust for its members, Work Unbound empowers Arup members to make their own choices about how they can do their best work. T

“hey can adopt a working pattern that suits their lifestyles. Importantly, it also means they can adapt to suit their clients preferred ways of working, whether that be in their offices, in Arup’s collaborative City Centre offices, on-site or at home.

“While this represents an evolution in how we work together, nothing can replace the human connection and relationships that make up our culture and nurture our development as built environment professionals.

“Our offices and colleagues live and work as a part of their community and as we embrace Work Unbound we will continue to invest in our city centre offices across the UK, reimagining our space as creative hubs where we can engage with city leaders, collaborators, and clients as partners in the effort to recover, transform, and thrive.”

David Almond, Senior Engineer based in Arup’s Liverpool office, added: “The flexible working pilot gave me the opportunity to try different ways of working to suit my lifestyle.

“I found that having the flexibility and freedom to work whichever hours, suited the demands of a young family.  It allowed me to make the most of my downtime, and ultimately have a healthier work-life balance.

“It also opened other options for travel to work as I wasn’t constrained to certain times or modes and working from home occasionally removed the commute altogether – time which was spent productively elsewhere.”