TRENDS WE COULD SEE IN 2021

Predicting anything now seems madness – but we can hope to see a little way ahead by extrapolating trends, and through expert/official insight

THE WAIT FOR A VACCINE

Every day brings dramatic new proposals - yet life will only return to normal if and when a sure-fire vaccine arrives. And that normal, you can be sure, will not be the old normal.

THE END OF CASH

In steep decline before Covid-19, 2020 has seen a collapse: transaction volumes across the Link network of cash machines network are down 60 per cent on 2019. THE RISE OF CLOUD KITCHENS

Just as Amazon has taken on huge numbers of staff, so ‘cloud kitchens’ – warehouses where teams cook and deliver meals to be eaten in shopfront restaurants and at home – are now hiring thousands to meet demand. A trend that was bubbling away before the pandemic is being institutionalised by this crisis.

A NEW WAY OF WORKING

Staggered shifts, contact tracing, lift closures, plastic screens between workspaces and a ban on hot-desking – these predictions emanate from Whitehall proposals to ease lockdown.

SOME ECO PROGRESS

Modernising our housing stock is top of the list for energy campaigners. It is also a good way of spreading money around the country, boosting local employment and dropping cash back into the economy to kick-start consumer spending. It would also target fuel poverty and accords with the Government’s agenda of ‘levelling up’ prosperity across the UK.