NatWest Orders 13,000 Staff Into Office Two Days a Week
NatWest scraps its remote-first policy, requiring all UK staff to work in-office at least twice weekly by February 2027.
NatWest Group is tightening its hybrid work rules, directing approximately 13,000 employees to sharply increase their office attendance — from two days per month to two days per week — a move that has drawn sharp criticism from the bank's staff union.
The new mandate will apply to nearly all of NatWest's 40,000 UK-based employees and takes effect in February 2027. The policy eliminates a remote-first arrangement that had allowed many workers to spend the overwhelming majority of their time away from the office. NatWest operates in the UK under several retail and private banking brands, including Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank, and Coutts.
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The change represents one of the more significant reversals of pandemic-era remote work concessions in British banking. For the roughly 13,000 employees who were coming in as infrequently as twice a month, the new schedule amounts to a fourfold increase in required in-person days, a shift that unions contend was imposed without adequate consultation.
NatWest's move aligns it with a broader wave of large employers — particularly in financial services — reasserting greater control over where and how their workforces operate. The friction between corporate return-to-office pushes and employee expectations around flexibility has become a defining labor tension across the sector, with unions increasingly pushing back against unilateral policy changes.
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