Hybrid Work in 2026: Are Your Systems Still Built for 2021?
Remember way back when working from home became (to use a phrase I haven’t typed in a while) ‘the new normal’? It seemed so novel, and yet also like it made so much sense that it was half surprising it had taken so long to become a thing. Five or six years down the line, it’s fair to say hybrid is here to stay, no matter what controversial politicians or billionaires may try to tell you. In fact, it’s baked in as the operating model for a significant proportion of UK businesses.
Yet many organisations are still running infrastructure designed in a moment of urgency back in 2020 and 2021, when technology was in mass shortages and ‘anything will do’ was sometimes the modus operandi.
That’s shown itself to us in conversations in the years since the lockdown, as we meet people who deployed ‘quick’ VPN expansions, underwent emergency cloud migrations, used the cheapest available tools for collaboration (or just not set up proper controls for what they have), or maybe they even just implemented stopgap security controls.
Sure, they worked at the time, and they kept the lights on. But 2026 is not 2021, and if you haven’t gone back to see if your systems are built for sustained hybrid operations, or if they’re still running on crisis-era architecture, you may have gaps you never knew existed.
Is The Pandemic Build-Out Showing Its Age?
When lockdowns forced offices to close, IT teams were in a semi-permanent state of playing catch-up that took years to get out of. Everyone wanted that velocity and instant answer, but with tech shortages and WFH mandates, it wasn’t entirely straightforward.
Using our perspective as an example, only a limited number of us could physically be in the office to ensure social distancing and rules were met, which meant Mitesh was in and out of our build area, unpacking deliveries, setting devices up for the support team to remote onto, and then packing and shipping them back out - such was the times and need for constant meeting what our clients needed. And ensuring we did so in a future-proof way that stands the test of time.
And yet, we know not everyone can - or is - in the same boat. When that period of time is thought of across the wider country, you start to factor in businesses that went it alone and bought off-the-shelf solutions, had a small in-house team trying to, in effect, tread water in a storm, or there are those who didn’t have a trusted MSP in place/one that they’ve since moved on from.
Regardless of how they got here, it may now be coming to light that the initial COVID panic led to policies being relaxed to keep productivity moving, which has created three long-term consequences:
Over-reliance on legacy VPN infrastructure
Tools sprawl across collaboration platforms
Identity and access controls bolted on, rather than designed in
Around six years later, many of those temporary measures have now started to reveal themselves, sometimes inadvertently, from fears about cyber threats, other times from things slowing down and impacting operations.
VPN appliances are still carrying core remote access. Teams are juggling multiple communication platforms. File shares exist in three different environments. And identity governance has evolved unevenly.
Sure, hybrid work is now stable. And most of us love it. Yet, the infrastructure supporting it often isn’t.
VPN Dependence Is a Bottleneck
Traditional VPN models were never designed for an entire workforce operating several days a week remotely, and that’s because they introduce:
Centralised bottlenecks
Increased latency
Flat network exposure once connected
Higher support overhead
In 2026, identity-centric access models are maturing, Zero Trust approaches are being more widely adopted, and conditional access policies are becoming more granular. Yet many organisations are still defaulting to “connect to the VPN” as the first and only solution.
Hybrid work infrastructure should be moving toward:
Identity-first authentication
Application-level access
Device posture verification
A reduced reliance on network-level trust
We’re not, for one second, advocating for a world without VPNs entirely, but they shouldn’t be your primary security model.
Collaboration Sprawl Is Real
Teams, Slack, Zoom, SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, WhatsApp groups, email threads, CRMs... We could go on, but the point here is that whilst hybrid work accelerated adoption, it also fractured visibility.
In many businesses, collaboration platforms were introduced reactively, and then governance came later, if at all. I mean, who here had really heard of and regularly used Zoom before 2020? And then, board meetings or HR discussions are taking place over it seemingly overnight.
Whilst it was beyond useful at the time, that way of working creates issues, such as:
Data duplication
Version control confusion
Retention policy gaps
Compliance blind spots
What that means for hybrid work is that it requires deliberate collaboration architecture, meaning:
Defined platform ownership
Clear data residency rules
Retention and deletion policies
Consistent user training
Without that? Productivity gains slowly become operational risk.
Device Lifecycle Planning Has Changed
In-office environments once made device management straightforward, as machines stayed on the network. Updates were visible. Hardware refresh cycles were predictable.
Without proper planning and procedures in place, hybrid work complicates this.
Devices operate off-network for extended periods, and personal devices sometimes mix with corporate systems. All of that means that patch compliance becomes harder to enforce, as physical security becomes more variable.
In 2026, organisations need:
Mature Mobile Device Management
Clear BYOD policies
Remote patch enforcement
Asset visibility across environments
Endpoint governance must scale with hybrid work.
Identity Is Now the Control Plane
In this hybrid world, identity replaces location, and who you are matters more than where you are. Another faucet to be mindful of is that it also leaves the door open to easier phishing attempts, so to counteract it, ensure you implement:
Strong multi-factor authentication
Conditional access rules
Privilege management
Regular access reviews
Only access systems from your own WiFi, and stay away from the free public options
Organisations that treat identity as infrastructure, rather than just an HR function, are better positioned to manage hybrid risk without creating friction.
Support Models Are Under Pressure
Hybrid environments also reshape support expectations, and we see this every single day.
Users expect seamless switching between home and office. They expect devices to work regardless of network context, and collaboration tools to sync instantly. And for good reason, too. We’ve all had some version of working fine in the office, logging in the next day from home and having trouble picking up where you left off.
That happens when infrastructure is fragmented, and then it’s the support teams who feel the strain.
In 2026, IT support isn’t just troubleshooting hardware. It’s managing distributed ecosystems. That requires:
Clear documentation
Proactive monitoring
Standardised environments
Measured rationalisation of tools
Hybrid work works best when complexity is intentionally managed and understood.
What Hybrid Maturity Looks Like in 2026
Organisations that have matured their hybrid infrastructure tend to share common traits:
Reduced reliance on network perimeter security
Strong identity and device posture controls
Consolidated collaboration platforms
Clear governance frameworks
Predictable device lifecycle management
Like it or loathe it, hybrid is well past its experimental stage. It’s an operational reality that’s here to stay, and the organisations that treat it as such will avoid the quiet accumulation of inefficiency and risk.
Final Thought
Hybrid work didn’t fail. And it isn’t going anywhere any time soon - no matter what clickbait headlines may tell you. In fact, hybrid has only evolved to be even better - and it won’t slow down any time soon.
What now matters is whether the systems supporting it have evolved, too.
If your infrastructure was built in a rush and never revisited, 2026 is a good time to reassess. Stability, visibility and governance are perhaps not the most glamorous topics to think about, but they are what sustain productivity long after the headlines fade.
Hybrid isn’t going away. The question is whether your architecture is built for the version of hybrid that actually exists today.