As many people find themselves with changing working patterns due to the coronavirus crisis, the Mendip area has emerged as the third best place to work from home in the UK, according to research by Uswitch.com, the comparison and switching service.

Mendip has been placed third in the Uswitch Remote Working Index, which ranks the desirability of the UK's 100 biggest areas based on broadband speed, green spaces, air quality, crime rates, quality of schools, and GPs per 100,000 people.

Top of the list is Harrogate, with Bath and North East Somerset in second. The top three are followed by Derry City and Strabane, Wigan, Cheshire, St Albans, York, Edinburgh and Swansea.

In comparison, the UK's biggest cities rank poorly on the Index, with Birmingham 82nd, London in 88th place, and Manchester ranked 100th.

When choosing a new place to live, half of people (53 per cent) said house prices were most important, followed by green spaces (45 per cent), crime rates (43 per cent), broadband speeds (34 per cent), air quality (28 per cent), local GP numbers (20 per cent) and the quality of local schools (16 per cent).

A fifth of people (19 per cent) want to spend more time working from home once the pandemic is over, and one in six employees (16 per cent) want to work from home full time when life returns to normal.

The proportion of people hoping to spend three or more days working from home each week is expected to double from less than one in five (17 per cent) to more than a third (35 per cent).

Almost a fifth of people (17 per cent) say they have already moved or want to relocate due to the benefits of working from home. People generally want to move from cities and larger towns to smaller towns and villages.

One in four (23 per cent) currently live in a city of more than 500,000 residents, but only one in nine (13 per cent) wish to do so in the future.

Conversely, the proportion who live in a village is only 15 per cent, but rises to three in ten (30 per cent) who would like to do so.

Adelana Carty, broadband expert at Uswitch.com, said: "The pandemic has turned our working routines upside down and given many of us a taste for what our lives could be like if we worked from home on a more permanent basis.

"Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in millions of people dreaming of ditching the rat race and moving away from the big city.

"Our Remote Working Index reveals some of the country's best places to work remotely and after house prices, the amount of green space in the area is the biggest priority for people hoping to work from home.

"If you're moving to a new area to work remotely, the speed and reliability of your broadband connection could be one of the most important things about your new location.

"Do your research and run a comparison online to see what speeds you could get before you commit to the move."