The five work from home jobs that require no formal qualifications

Employers have been forced to trial remote working for the first time, with positive results.

According to research by Cardiff and Southampton universities, nine out of ten employees who have worked at home during lockdown would like to continue doing so in some capacity.

Homeworking has rocketed since the start of lockdown – rising from 6% of employees before the pandemic to 43% in April this year.

The results of the Understanding Society Covid-19 Study also indicate productivity among the majority of those working from home during lockdown remained stable or even improved, compared to the previous six months.

“For many years, homeworking has been growing slowly, but since the onset of the pandemic, it is now commonplace,” said Professor Alan Felstead, based at Cardiff University and the Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods.

“Our analysis suggests there will be a major shift away from the traditional workplace, even when social distancing is no longer a requirement.”

Offering greater flexibility, no commuting costs and fewer distractions, remote working is pretty appealing.

The good news is that employers are increasingly advertising roles that allow you to work from home, even without formal qualifications.

Watch: How to answer difficult interview questions

Web development

Many web developers are able to work from home, which makes it an attractive career option.

While some may have formal qualifications from university, others are self-taught. Often, successful developers have a deep desire to learn constantly, whether its graphic design, programming, scripting and other areas.

“There are several work-from-home positions like customer service, web development, sales representative or executive, data entry specialist, administrative or virtual assistant, interpreter or translator, social media evaluator and medical coder that tend not to require a college degree,” says Toni Frana, career coach and team lead at FlexJobs and Remote.co.

“Some of these are entry-level positions that don’t require much experience, while others require experience but not a degree.”

Data entry

Data entry professionals enter data into a computer system or into some type of secure file system. Their job may include other types of administrative activities.

In general, data entry workers are required to be able to read and type quickly, but formal qualifications aren’t always necessary.

Data entry jobs can be done remotely, which makes it a good option for people wanting to work from home.

READ MORE: How 'mental flow' can help boost your mood when working from home

Social media coordinating

Nearly all companies have some form of social media, which promote goods and engage people in conversations, provide links to articles, videos and other media to draw people to their website.

Social media coordinators use social networking websites to introduce topics or promote products and ideas online.

You may not necessarily need a degree or qualification in communications, but you will need to be very engaged in social media and have a solid understanding of how to use it for business.

Virtual assistant

Virtual admins provide administrative support to companies, agencies or small business owners.

They can either be self-employed or work remotely as an employee and they are especially in demand by entrepreneurs and online businesses that need help but don’t want to spend the money on an office space for staff.

Virtual admins perform many of the traditional back-office administrative roles that office managers or customer support staff fulfil.

Watch: What to ask in a job interview

Translator

If you are bilingual or multilingual, working as a translator can be a great job which doesn’t require a degree. Translators will translate information from one language to another for businesses or individuals such as journalists. Good typing skills and editing skills are often needed.