Best VPNs for Remote Working in the UK

Published 30 January 2026 · by VPN Free UK

Remote and hybrid working has become a permanent fixture of UK employment. According to the Office for National Statistics, roughly 40 per cent of UK workers now spend at least part of their week working from home, a co-working space, or a coffee shop. This shift has brought enormous flexibility, but it has also introduced serious cybersecurity risks. A commercial VPN is one of the simplest and most effective tools remote workers can use to protect themselves and their employers. In this guide, we explain why a VPN matters for remote work, what features to look for, and which providers are best suited to the task.

Why Remote Workers Need a VPN

Every time you connect to the internet outside your company’s office network, your traffic travels across infrastructure that you do not control. At home, your ISP can see the domains you visit. In a coffee shop or hotel, anyone on the same Wi-Fi network could potentially intercept unencrypted data. A VPN solves this by creating an encrypted tunnel between your device and a secure server, ensuring that no one — not your ISP, not the café owner, and not a malicious actor on the same network — can read your traffic.

For remote workers, the stakes are higher than personal privacy. You may be handling sensitive company documents, accessing internal dashboards, or communicating with clients over email and messaging platforms. A data breach caused by an unsecured connection could expose intellectual property, customer records, or financial information, potentially violating UK GDPR obligations in the process.

Public Wi-Fi: The Biggest Threat

Public Wi-Fi networks are notoriously insecure. Many lack basic encryption, and even those that do can be compromised through evil twin attacks, where an attacker sets up a fake hotspot mimicking a legitimate network. Once connected, the attacker can intercept login credentials and session tokens via man-in-the-middle attacks. A VPN renders these attacks largely ineffective by encrypting all traffic into an unintelligible stream, making it indispensable for anyone who works from co-working spaces, trains, airports, or hotels.

Split Tunnelling: Balancing Security and Performance

One common concern about using a VPN for work is performance. Routing all of your traffic through an encrypted tunnel can add latency, which is particularly noticeable during video calls or when uploading large files. This is where split tunnelling becomes essential.

Split tunnelling lets you choose which applications or websites use the VPN and which connect directly. For example, you might route your company email client and file-sharing tools through the VPN while letting Spotify or YouTube bypass it. This reduces the load on the VPN connection and keeps your work traffic secure without sacrificing streaming or browsing speed for non-sensitive activity.

NordVPN offers an excellent split-tunnelling feature on Windows and Android, allowing you to select specific apps to include or exclude from the tunnel. ExpressVPN also supports split tunnelling on Windows, Mac, and Android, giving you granular control over your traffic routing.

Best VPNs for Remote Work in the UK

Not every VPN is equally well suited to professional use. Here are the providers we recommend for remote workers:

  • NordVPN — With over 6,400 servers in 111 countries, NordVPN delivers fast, reliable connections across the globe. Its Threat Protection feature blocks malware and phishing domains at the DNS level, adding an extra security layer on top of encryption. The Meshnet feature also allows you to create private encrypted tunnels directly between devices, which is ideal for accessing your home computer from a remote location. NordVPN supports split tunnelling and offers dedicated IP addresses for users who need a consistent IP for accessing corporate resources.
  • ExpressVPN — ExpressVPN is widely regarded as one of the fastest VPNs available. Its Lightway protocol is optimised for speed and stability, making it an excellent choice for video conferencing and large file transfers. ExpressVPN also runs all of its servers on RAM-only infrastructure (TrustedServer), meaning no data is ever written to a hard drive. For remote workers who travel frequently, ExpressVPN’s consistent performance across regions is a significant advantage.

Commercial VPN vs Corporate VPN: What Is the Difference?

Many employers provide a corporate VPN that connects employees directly to the company network. This is a different tool from a commercial VPN like NordVPN or ExpressVPN. A corporate VPN is designed to give you access to internal systems — file servers, intranets, databases — as if you were physically in the office. A commercial VPN, by contrast, encrypts your general internet traffic and masks your IP address.

The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, using a commercial VPN alongside a corporate VPN can provide an extra layer of protection, especially on public Wi-Fi. You can connect to the commercial VPN first to secure your connection to the internet, then launch the corporate VPN within that tunnel. Some corporate IT policies may not permit this, so always check with your employer before layering VPNs.

Tips for Secure Remote Working

A VPN is a critical part of your security toolkit, but it works best as one component of a broader strategy. Here are additional steps every remote worker should take:

  • Enable two-factor authentication on every work account. Even if your password is compromised, 2FA prevents unauthorised access.
  • Keep your operating system and apps updated. Security patches close vulnerabilities that attackers actively exploit.
  • Use a password manager to generate and store unique, strong passwords for every service.
  • Avoid transferring work files via personal email or USB drives. Use company-approved cloud storage with proper access controls.
  • Lock your device whenever you step away, even briefly.

Not sure which VPN is right for your remote work setup? Take our VPN recommendation quiz to get a personalised suggestion based on your priorities, whether that is speed, security, or value for money.