Kahwah Wee, 44, and her husband Nick Poole, 46, plan to continue working from their Killara home on Sydney’s north shore.

Before the pandemic, Ms Wee ran a call centre in Chatswood and was considering finding a new office before the first lockdown in 2020. She has now abandoned the plan to find a new office and will continue running her company from home.

Since the latest lockdown ended in October, Mr Poole, who works as a project manager for a hospitality and entertainment business, has returned to his office one day a week. From next year he plans to return three days a week and is also looking forward to working from home two days a week to help care for his children Angela, 12, and Henry, 9.

The CSIRO research also found the number of people working remotely in areas including the Southern Highlands, Byron Bay in NSW and the Sunshine Coast in Queensland had increased.

Naomi Brooker, 35, who works in public relations moved from Sydney’s eastern suburbs to Byron Bay in June with her husband, an economist, who had been working full time in a city office before the pandemic.

“With the restrictions in place, we weren’t enjoying the best of Sydney and not getting access to the kind of lifestyle we wanted,” Ms Brooker said.

She said the pandemic had “sped up” their plans to move out of the city after they realised there was a greater acceptance of remote work.

NBN’s chief data officer Joanna Gurry said many changes in working patterns established during the pandemic “will persist, with significant implications for how, and where, we live, work and interact with each other”.

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