The rise of the super-commuter

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Mohammed Marikar’s typical commute to his office in the City of London takes three and a half hours. On a bad day, it is more than four.

The senior director at RBC Wealth Management is one of a growing breed of “super-commuters”, many of whom moved out of town during the pandemic to increase their living space in more affordable regions, and now travel long distances to their workplace for part of the week.

The proportion of commuters globally doing a journey of 90-120 minutes at least once a week has risen from 2.4 per cent in 2020 to just over 4 per cent in 2024, according to Euromonitor. Those with a commute of more than 120 minutes rose from 2.7 per cent to 3.4 per cent.

Marikar and his wife, who runs her own business, moved with their four children from Eastcote, north-west London, to north Wales in 2022. Instead of his previous daily commute of 75 minutes, Marikar gets up at 5am on a Tuesday morning and is at his desk at about 10am — working a later shift so he can overlap with colleagues in Toronto. He returns to Wales after work on Thursday. On Mondays and Fridays, he works from home.

Marikar sometimes ponders the wisdom of his move when stuck in gridlock traffic, but on balance is happy. “You notice a difference in the air. There’s a lot more we can do at the weekends with the kids.” Even when they lived in London, making it home for dinner was pretty rare.

Love Whelchel now travels to his job in New York from Miami, having moved from New Jersey. He typically spends a fortnight at home and then a week commuting. Although he is away more he says the time he does have with his family is better quality. “It’s given me some balance and focus. This has been an amazing time to spend with my teenage son. When I was commuting in New York, I barely saw him.”

Some employers are attempting to ease the financial burden on long-distance commuters beyond allowing them to work part of the week from home and offering rail season ticket loans. For Marikar, the game changer has been his company’s electric car financing arrangement paid through salary sacrifice — an increasingly popular benefit among employers — that spurred him to switch from trains, which can cost up to about £350 a week, to driving, which is just under £50. “The journey is longer. [But] I don’t need to stick to train times. If a train is [delayed] I’m not stuck.”

Adam Wyman, employment partner at law firm Travers Smith, says companies tend not to incentivise commuting but will reimburse travel and accommodation for some high performers. “Businesses that have a skills gap are looking more widely than before. They can recruit someone in another country and pay for them to come to the office where and when.” He also observes a post-pandemic trend for some companies to provide discretionary packages for staff they want to retain who are moving to other countries to be closer to family.

David Wreford, a partner at consultancy Mercer, says subsidising travel on a larger scale could be divisive, particularly as there is already a debate over whether pay for remote workers should be adjusted for locality.

Andrew Wilson, director of communications and responsible banking at Santander UK, says the pandemic has intensified pre-existing trends. “The whole ‘Willies’ culture [work in London, live in Edinburgh] has been there for years and lots of people do it given the importance of London for finance.” However, due to widespread hybrid working, “the weeks are not as long as they were and there is greater balance”. 

Judy Niner, founder of Monday to Friday, which matches people with spare rooms to part-time renters says “people coming back to the office are tending to stay for fewer nights — three or even just two nights a week is common, whereas it used to be four or five. They seem to want to pack their office work into as short a period as possible and get out of the city and home.”

Long commutes nonetheless can take their toll. “A very early start to the day means that by the end of a commute day you are tired,” says Wilson, who leaves his home at 5am on either Monday or Tuesday to catch the plane from Edinburgh and returns on Wednesday or Thursday. Some of his colleagues do the same between London and Madrid. “When I was younger it was easier.”

Costs can be high too. While Danny Riding, a lawyer at Travers Smith, owns a four-bedroom house in the Welsh countryside, a big trade-up from his former one-bed rental in London, he probably pays about £1,500 a month on travel and renting a room near work. “If you think about it in those terms, then the house prices comparison isn’t great.”

Learning to become an expert guest has been key for Max Dawes, chief operating officer at Zappar, an augmented reality platform, who moved with his wife from London to the Isle of Wight four years ago. Dawes swapped his 20-minute walking commute for a four-hour one by train and ferry, coming up on Wednesday and leaving late on Thursday night. “I have a group of patient family and friends. I stay out of the way when their kids go to bed [and do] not insist they go out for beers.”

It has been a “total mindset shift”, he says though he does not “dread the commute”. “It is productive for big chunks of time. When I travel late on Thursday night I read a book. When you have young kids, time to yourself is a sanctuary.”