Where to Work When You Can Work Anywhere? Try These Top 20 Cities

Pandemic quarantines may have encouraged remote work but it’s now job seekers leading the charge. While compensation still reigns as the top enticing factor for retaining and attracting talent, a flexible work schedule is a close second. And as a result, remote work is here to stay.

According to data from LinkedIn’s Economic Graph team, remote work is on the rise. Remote jobs captured more than 30 percent of all applications to paid U.S. job postings on LinkedIn. Compare this to just 10 percent in August 2020. If we look back to January 2020, before the pandemic, remote job applications accounted for just 2.8 percent of the share.

So where are remote jobs on the rise? If you could work anywhere, where would you work?

According to LinkedIn’s Workforce Report, the top three cities are Bend, Ore., Asheville, N.C., and Wilmington, Del. See the complete list of top 20 cities below.

Big metro areas like New York City and San Francisco are notably absent from the list of smaller cities that offer a much lower cost of living. And while it may be difficult to predict the future of the country’s largest metropolitan areas, one thing remains certain: remote work has and will continue to redefine how, when, and where we work.