26th July 2026
For decades, one of the biggest disadvantages of living in Caithness has been geography.
We are a long way from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and the major employment centres of Britain.
For a young person looking for a career, that distance has often meant a choice: leave Caithness or accept that some jobs simply aren't available locally.
But something rather important has changed.
Increasing numbers of people no longer necessarily have to live close to the office.
So perhaps the question for Caithness is no longer:
"How do we persuade more employers to come here?"
Perhaps it should increasingly be:
"Why can't people work for employers anywhere while living here?"
Remote working is no longer just a pandemic experiment
There was a widespread assumption that working from home was largely a consequence of Covid and that eventually everyone would return to the office.
That hasn't happened.
The latest Scottish Government Business Insights and Conditions Survey provides a useful snapshot.
In May 2026, 10.9% of Scottish businesses with 10 or more employees said they were using or intended to use increased homeworking as a permanent business model.
But the figure varies dramatically between industries.
In Information & Communication, it was 36.7%.
In Professional, Scientific & Technical Activities, it was 35.7%.
Large businesses were also considerably more likely to embrace increased homeworking than smaller businesses.
So while homeworking certainly isn't suitable for every occupation, it has become an established part of the employment landscape.
And that creates an interesting possibility for Caithness.
The biggest opportunity may be jobs that don't need Caithness employers
A business does not necessarily need to open an office in Wick to employ someone who lives in Wick.
That is a profound change.
A person living in Caithness could potentially work for a company based in:
Aberdeen;
Edinburgh;
Glasgow;
London;
Manchester;
Dublin;
or even another country.
They could be doing work in:
software;
accounting;
administration;
marketing;
design;
engineering support;
financial services;
consultancy;
customer support;
data analysis;
artificial intelligence;
digital media.
The employer gets a member of staff without necessarily requiring them to relocate.
The worker gets a career without necessarily leaving Caithness.
And the local economy gets the benefit of someone living and spending their income here.
That could be a significant change.
Scotland's businesses are already thinking this way
One particularly interesting finding from Scottish Government research is that businesses using or planning permanent homeworking cited access to a wider geographical pool of workers as one of the reasons for doing so.
That turns the traditional argument about remoteness on its head.
For generations, Caithness has been told that its geographical isolation makes it difficult to attract skilled workers.
But if an employer can recruit from anywhere, the employer doesn't necessarily need to be physically close to the worker.
And suddenly Caithness becomes part of the recruitment pool.
But there is a catch – broadband
There is no point telling people that they can work from anywhere if their internet connection isn't good enough to support modern digital employment.
This is why broadband is no longer simply a convenience.
It is economic infrastructure.
Scotland has been investing heavily in this.
The Scottish Government says more than 100,000 faster broadband connections have now been delivered through the £600 million-plus R100 programme, particularly targeting rural and hard-to-reach areas. Independent evaluation found that around three-quarters of businesses reported increased productivity and stronger performance following improved connectivity.
The Highland Council has also identified digital connectivity as an important part of its ambition to make the Highlands the most digitally connected rural region in Europe.
That is encouraging.
But Caithness still has a digital challenge.
A Caithness Area Place Plan highlighted that as recently as September 2024, only 18% of premises had the potential to access 1Gbps broadband, while a further 39% might obtain those speeds commercially within three years. It also identified 43% of premises where public subsidy would be required and was not then programmed.
The situation is changing, but the message is clear:
For remote working to become a serious economic strategy, connectivity has to be treated as essential infrastructure.
This could help tackle one of Caithness's biggest problems
There is another reason this matters.
Caithness has a long-running demographic problem.
The Caithness Area Place Plan identifies population decline, an ageing population and young people leaving for better opportunities as significant challenges.
This creates a vicious circle.
Young people leave because there aren't enough attractive career opportunities.
Their departure reduces the local working-age population.
A smaller working population makes it harder for businesses to recruit.
That makes it harder to develop new businesses.
And that can create yet more reasons for young people to leave.
Remote employment offers a way of breaking at least part of that cycle.
A young person might be able to live in Caithness while working for a company hundreds of miles away.
They could earn a salary generated outside the local economy while spending much of it locally.
That means the economic benefit of the job comes into Caithness even though the employer is somewhere else.
Imagine what that could mean
Suppose 100 people living in Caithness obtained well-paid jobs with companies elsewhere in Britain.
They would still need:
somewhere to live;
food;
heating;
electricity;
vehicles;
repairs;
tradespeople;
restaurants;
shops;
childcare;
entertainment;
local services.
Their wages would therefore circulate through the local economy.
Now imagine it happening on a much larger scale.
It wouldn't replace traditional employment.
But it could add another layer to the Caithness economy.
And importantly, it wouldn't necessarily depend on attracting a major factory or large corporate headquarters to the area.
Could Caithness become a place people move to for work?
This is where the idea becomes more interesting.
For decades, the economic development model has often been:
Bring jobs to Caithness so people will stay.
Perhaps the digital economy allows another model:
Bring people to Caithness because they can take their jobs with them.
There are obvious attractions.
Caithness offers:
comparatively low-density living;
access to open countryside;
the sea and Flow Country;
a strong sense of community;
outdoor recreation;
less congestion;
and, for some people, a very different quality of life from living in a major city.
For somebody who can earn a London, Edinburgh or Aberdeen salary without travelling to those cities every day, the calculation could be very different.
And this isn't just about young people
Remote employment could also help people who have already left Caithness.
Imagine someone who grew up in Wick or Thurso, moved south for a career and eventually decided that they would like to return.
Previously, returning could mean accepting a lower-paid local job or abandoning the career they had built elsewhere.
Remote and hybrid working potentially changes that.
They could return home without necessarily giving up their career.
That could be particularly valuable to Caithness.
Instead of losing young people permanently, the area might eventually see some of them return with skills, experience and income earned elsewhere.
There is also an opportunity for local businesses
This shouldn't be viewed simply as a way of attracting employees.
It could also create new businesses.
Someone who lives in Caithness and works remotely for a large company might eventually decide to become self-employed.
They already have the skills.
They already have the contacts.
They already understand the market.
And they already have somewhere to live.
A digital economy can therefore create businesses that simply could not have existed locally twenty years ago.
But we shouldn't pretend everyone can work from home
There is an important qualification.
Remote working is not a solution for every occupation.
A builder can't build a house from a spare bedroom.
A nurse needs patients.
A fisherman needs the sea.
A mechanic needs a workshop.
A care worker needs to visit people.
A hospitality worker needs to be where the customers are.
A manufacturer needs somewhere to manufacture.
The latest Scottish Government figures make precisely this point: 66.4% of businesses in the May 2026 survey said they were not using or intending to use increased homeworking as a permanent model, with 82.3% of those saying homeworking was not suitable for their business.
So this isn't about replacing the existing Caithness economy.
It is about adding another economic pillar to it.
The real challenge may be infrastructure
If Caithness wants to benefit from this change, the argument should perhaps be broader than simply asking for faster broadband.
People working remotely need more than an internet connection.
They need:
reliable mobile coverage;
fast broadband;
dependable electricity;
suitable housing;
good transport when they occasionally need to travel;
access to meeting spaces;
childcare;
business support;
training;
and potentially co-working facilities.
The Highland Council's own economic strategy recognises digital connectivity as part of creating a region of digital opportunity and an economy where businesses can grow and communities can thrive.
The foundations are therefore beginning to appear.
But the opportunity needs to be recognised.
Perhaps we should stop thinking of remoteness only as a disadvantage
This may be the most important change of all.
For much of the industrial age, economic geography was brutally simple.
Businesses wanted to be close to:
customers;
workers;
suppliers;
railways;
ports;
roads;
and major cities.
Digital technology has not eliminated those advantages.
But it has weakened some of them.
If the product is information, software, financial advice, design, data or knowledge, it may not matter nearly as much where the person producing it is sitting.
That changes the economic equation.
Caithness's geographical isolation remains a problem for some businesses.
But for certain types of employment, the same isolation could become part of the attraction.
What if Caithness marketed itself differently?
Perhaps we need to stop selling Caithness solely as somewhere to visit.
Tourism is enormously important, but visitors eventually go home.
A remote worker who moves here doesn't.
They pay council tax here.
They shop here.
They use local tradespeople.
They buy houses.
They send their children to local schools.
They join local organisations.
They become part of the community.
That is a much deeper economic contribution.
Perhaps Caithness should therefore be marketed not only as:
"Come and visit."
but also:
"Come and live here – and bring your career with you."
The question for Caithness
The future may not be about choosing between traditional industries and the digital economy.
It could be about combining them.
Dounreay, energy, engineering, construction, agriculture, fishing, tourism, retail and local services will continue to matter.
But alongside them could grow another economic sector consisting of people who live in Caithness but work for employers elsewhere.
And that is why the title of this article is worth asking seriously:
If people can work from anywhere, why not Caithness?
The technology increasingly exists.
The demand for flexible working has not disappeared.
Scotland is investing in rural connectivity.
And Caithness already has something that many urban areas cannot easily manufacture:
space, environment and quality of life.
The challenge is to make sure that the digital infrastructure and economic thinking catch up with it.
Perhaps the next generation should not have to choose between a career and Caithness.
Perhaps, increasingly, they should be able to have both.