THE number of people working from home has risen by nearly a third in a decade, but if the trend for co-working is anything to go by, it seems colleagues are still something home workers cannot do without.

According to analysis of official figures by the TUC last year, the number of people working from home has increased by 13 per cent in the past five years. In 2012, more than four million employees worked at home – nearly two thirds were male, but the majority of home-based jobs created in the last five years have gone to women.

They may have turned their back on the traditional office, but more and more people are looking for co-working spaces after realising the benefits it can have on their business.

It was this that prompted business coach, Jayne Graham, in 2010 to launch Colleagues On Tap – a series of pop-up co-working days across the North-East.

Nearly 200 business owners regularly attend and there are now plans to expand further and run events in Darlington, across North Yorkshire and Northumberland. The events are held eight times a month in venues such as offices, cinemas, hotels and libraries and cost £20 per day (including wifi, lunch, tea and coffee).

“There were plenty of co-working spaces around London, but not many in the North- East,” says Ms Graham. “Many people who work from home do so to enjoy the benefits of low overheads and flexibility of being their own boss, but it can be quite isolating.

“If you’re working from home and only talk to your customers, you are not getting any opportunity to develop yourself and it is the personal development in business that is massively lacking.”

The initiative has attracted people of all ages and professions from photographers, designers and fitness trainers to PR people, business and IT consultants.

Kathryn Clarke, from Spennymoor, runs her own Image Consultancy and hosts the co-working days at the North East Chamber of Commerce’s headquarters in Aykley Heads, Durham City. “I worked in an office for a couple of years and I liked the colleagues and the social side of it. With the co-working days you get all that – the support of colleagues and the chat – but you don’t get wrapped up in any office politics. It also gives me the chance to really focus on the business away from clients and the home,” she says.

ACCORDING to DeskMag, the number of co-working spaces has increased by 83 per cent worldwide in the past year and the number of users by 117 per cent.

All offer wifi, tea and coffee, some offer sun decks, toast and special discounts from brands such as O2, Apple and MyHotel.

Although an increasing number of bars and coffee shops now have wifi, co-working spaces have the advantage of peace and quiet without the clatter of a coffee machine or babies crying.

Prices, and noise levels, can vary. Newcastle Business Village, for instance, in the centre of Newcastle, has desks for hire from £5, along with a coffee lounge where people can hold informal meetings and a “Quiet Zone”. There is a lot of collaboration among the regulars, who even meet up and go out for a meal once a month. “They may not work in the same industry, but they know the pressures and how isolating it can be to work by yourself,” says centre manager Liz Ainley.

Colleagues On Tap events are different to other co-working spaces because the sessions are more structured – people arrive and get on with their work in the morning, meet up for lunch, then in the afternoon they have a discussion on a subject agreed in advance on how to improve their business.

Iain Forrest, an internet marketing consultant from Wynyard, near Stockton, has been working from home on and off for ten years. Although it gave him the flexibility to spend time with his family, he felt he also needed a temporary space where he could work away from home. He discovered Colleagues On Tap last year. One of the appeals for him was that it was less formal than a networking event, but he still made some interesting contacts. He finds it useful if he has a meeting in Newcastle and needs somewhere to work for a few hours, he says it is also handy for exchanging knowledge, hints and tips.

“I appreciate the change of working somewhere else and having someone else structure the day, it’s less distracting than your average office, people are pretty respectful,” he says.

Although he doesn’t spend as many hours working at an event than when he is working at home, he does find it a lot easier to focus. “I certainly don’t get up and go to the fridge as often,” he says.

REBECCA SERGEANT, from Stockton, runs two businesses – a book-keeping business as well as Enigma Analysis providing intelligence analysis. After working from home full-time for a year, she believes co-working is the future. “A lot of people don’t know what to expect if they’ve never been before, there can be a misconception that not much work would be done due to distractions, but I’ve found it makes you work differently and as such, more productively,” she says.

Colleagues On Tap events are currently held in Durham, Stockton, Redcar, Consett, Newcastle, Benton and Alnmouth.

As Ms Graham, who came up with the initial idea, says: “The number of people working for themselves at home is growing significantly and it is time now to complement that, not try and avoid it.”

  • For informatuion about upcoming coworking events, go to colleaguesontap.co.uk