According to the TUC they are escaping the equivalent of five extra weeks at work as those who do have to commute now spend nearly 200 hours a year doing so. London has the longest commute times for both male and female workers at 37.8 minutes per journey each way, while Northern Ireland has the shortest at 22.4 minutes.

Men spend an average of 219 hours commuting per year, compared to 174 hours for women, with the gender commuting gap being biggest in the South East (8.8 minutes for each journey), the East of England (8.6 minutes) and Scotland (7 minutes).

Next year's London Olympics offers the perfect opportunity for workers in the capital to embrace smarter working such as homeworking and staggered start and finish times, the TUC said.

Chief Executive of Work Wise UK Phil Flaxton agreed and said: "In this day and age, old working practices dictating that employees must travel vast distances to sit at a desk every day are outdated”.

For those that do have to travel however the emphasis should be on cutting those journey times, according to the Institute of Directors (IoD). It has released details of a survey of its members showing that they would rather see improvements to existing Intercity and commuter lines than the proposed HS2 high-speed line.

Director General Simon Walker said: "In straitened times, choices will have to be made between some improvements to existing rail lines and a new high speed line, and we want to see the Government take the business view seriously."