Last Tuesday at lunchtime I walked past one of the big four accountancy firms in the City. Two years ago, walking past the big four accountancy firms at lunchtime would have filled your retina with screens full of navy and charcoal suits, white shirts, conservative ties; smart British business attire at its finest. Since college at least, offices have adhered to a centuries-old dress code of sober classics – as their work largely consists of them relaxing said dress code for private equity funds.
Two years ago my retinas would have been full of this. Today I saw a dude wearing what looked like technical hiking trousers with a blazer; a woman wearing an actual suit with trainers; a grey-haired bloke in chinos who looked so senior he could’ve been wearing nothing but a sling undershirt with impunity; and, inside my headmarktrigger=yes;a href=”#googpagelink”>irreparably damaged my connection to my dad forever, a young man wearing – and I’m not exaggerating – shorts. Not chinos styled to look like shorts.
Not linen cargo shorts. Shorts. <img class=”size-full” src=”http: //joewears.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/im1979_British-Office_Style_in_2024_Whats_Actually_Acceptable__1.jpg” alt=”im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable ” /> If British office style in 20twenty three was a confused teenager, 2024’s office style is going through menopause.
Since the start of the pandemic, businesses large and small have wrestled with their employee dress codes (or lack thereof).
What was acceptable to wear to work has now splintered to a degree that is almost meaningless. Gone are the days where you could work in advertising and know for certain your coworkers at the company down the street would be wearing the same style of clothes. It now changes between companies, offices within those companies, and sometimes what day of the week it is within the same flipping office. “I have literally no idea what to wear to work anymore,” my pal James, who works in insurance, lamented over a couple of beers last month. “Half the office are wearing suits and the other half reckon by showing up in tracksuits they’re making a stand against weak male leadership or something.
And I’m over here wearing chinos and Oxford shirts feeling dumb whichever way I dress.” James is far from alone in his confusion. I’ve had more people than I can count on chubby fingers contact me desperate for advice on what to wear to work in the last two years than I did in the previous twenty. And I’m not talking about the guys who’ve always struggled with clothes and would wear a potato sack if they though they could get away with it in the office.
I’m talking about normal guys who previously worked in workplaces with established dress codes and understood exactly what they needed to wear to fit in and succeed. So what *is* acceptable to wear to work in Britain now? It depends on what industry you work in, naturally.
Thanks to you lovely people sending me emails, my friends working in dozens of industries, and, yes, lurking outside people’s offices pretending to look at my phone when I’m actually taking secret trousersville-watch, here’s what I’ve learnt about what’s acceptable to wear in offices around Britain today. <img class=”size-full” src=”http: //joewears.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/im1979_British-Office_Style_in_2024_Whats_Actually_Acceptable__2.jpg” alt=”im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable _” /> Banking and Finance: By far the worst culprits for letting people wander into work wearing whatever. The City suit-and-tie uniform is still very much alive and well for anyone in a client facing job or senior position at one of the old-guard institutions. US-style banks have leaned-in hard to business casual over the last few years – Goldman Sachs officially ditched their dress code back in 2019, and have shown no signs of reprising it post-pandemic – but the ones over here are holding out for now.
As far as I can tell, wearing a good, well-fitting suit with no tie is still perfectly acceptable. If your office doesn’t allow ties (looking at you Goldman),stick to smart separates; tailored trousers and a blazer. Footwear is where they draw the line in most institutions – a decent pair of leather shoes are still expected.
Wearing trainers with a suit has become commonplace now in many industries, but I’ve yet to see it gain widespread traction in finance. My banker friend Tom said to approach it with this mentality: “If everyone else wears a suit and tie, just turn up smart trousers and a shirt. You’re showing respect by wearing clothes they’d accept, but you’re not being stuffy by wearing a tie yourself.” Suit Monday-Thursday, smart-casual Fridays.
And if you’ve got a client meeting, take a look at who you’re meeting. If they’re wearing a shirt and blazer, you probably should too. If they’re already in a t shirt, you can get away with it.
Law: A close second to finance. Client-facing lawyers and those who appear in court obviously need to stick to formalwear for those occasions, but for day-to-day office wear things have thankfully relaxed. Dark suits are still common but hardly required daily wear like they used to be.
One solicitor friend described it as “smart business separates. Good trousers. Nice shirts.
Blazers or jackets. Doesn’t have to be suits.” Tie office has been replaced with optional office for most. Training shoes on court days are banned, but acceptable otherwise.
Outside of the Magic Circle, many smaller law firms have adopted business casual fully. It very much depends on the age of the partners, with older ones upholding the standards and the younger ones letting their hair (largely still grey) down. <img class=”size-full” src=”http: //joewears.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/im1979_British-Office_Style_in_2024_Whats_Actually_Acceptable__3.jpg” alt=”im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable ” /> Accountancy and Consultancy: Easily the most baffling. All of the big four accountancy firms have relaxed their dress codes on paper, but how this plays out IRL seems to differ from office to office, team to team.
If you’ve got client contact, you’ll still wear a shirt and suit more often than not. If you’re like, working in internal teams…who knows? Head of internal communications at Deloitte (who wished to remain nameless) told me “we dress based on who we’re seeing now.
Traditional clients get suits. Startups we’ll wear smart-casual. So I keep a blazer at my desk now, in case we need to see someone last minute and I need to dial it up.” Smart-casual has become the go-to, but with offices interpreting that differently.
All I know is that I saw that dude in shorts. This “dress for your day” mentality sounds great in theory but is causing anxiety for employees in practise. “I stress about what to wear more now than when we had a formal dress code,” said one EY employee. “If I wear a shirt and trousers I think I look older and boring. If I dress too casually I worry I look like I don’t care.” Current consensus from those inside seems to be tailored trousers, a proper shirt (patterns okay nowadays), smart shoes, and a blazer if you need to smarten up.
Business casual, but make it 20twenty four. Marketing, Media and Creative: As you’d expect, always been the leaders and best adopters of casual workwear. So far it looks like they’ve thrown out every rule except for client meetings.
The issue now though is that expectation of “being smart” has been replaced by expectation of “looking stylish”. Arriving in work clothes better than your colleagues is somehow more stressful than having a dress code to follow. Go technical with it; good jeans or chinos, casual shirts but still nice fitting, knitwear when it’s cold, and clean trainers or desert boots. “As long as it’s something you’d feel comfortable being photographed in?” said my mate who works in advertising. “Don’t wear what you’d wear to the gym, don’t wear what you’d wear painting the house.
T-shirt and jeans are absolutely fine, so is a shirt and blazer. It’s whatever’s between those extremes that’s tricky.” Sure. <img class=”size-full” src=”http: //joewears.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable _0.jpg” alt=”im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable ” /> Tech and Startups: Far less hoodies-and-sandals-than-you’d-expect in reality in the UK (definitely still more casual than our Silicon Valley counterparts over the pond), but still the dress-down kings. Dark jeans and a smart-casual shirt has become the default uniform.
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Good shoes are still important, but trainers are fully accepted. Dress so you look sharp, not formal. Government and Public Sector: Heavily depends where you work.
The civil service down in central government still has fairly formal expectations compared to most. Local government has relaxed to a far greater degree. “It’s about dressing for credibility.” That’s what the civil servant friend I spoke to said. If you’ve got client contact or are representing your department in some capacity, expectation is you’ll dress up.
But there’s been more slack given for internal teams. Still keeps a tie at his desk just in case. Casual Fridays are pretty much gone.
You’ll see people in shorts and Hawaiian shirts if the weather’s good, but they’re rare. Instead of certain days of the week being casual, it’s become dictated by your diary. Who you’re meeting that day.
What you’re doing. Whether you need to present to clients that day. Makes sense, but you have to think about what you’re wearing each day rather than having outright casual days. <img class=”size-full” src=”http: //joewears.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable _1.jpg” alt=”im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable _1″ /> General rules of thumb then.
A couple of others to add to my above industry breakdown. 1. When in doubt, dress smarter than you think you need to for the first week or two at a new job.
Once you’ve got a feel for the culture, you can relax your outfits. 2. Invest in good separates.
Trousers, blazers, shirts. That can be mixed and matched to smarten up or dress down as needed. <img class=”size-full” src=”http: //joewears.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable _2.jpg” alt=”im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable _2″ /> 3. Shoes are one of the easiest ways to dress your office outfit up or down.
A good pair of leather shoes will still take you a long way in a traditional office. A sleek, minimal trainer (not ones you’d go to the gym in obvs) is now accepted in most offices. 4.
With most offices relaxing their dress code, how things fit is more important than ever. An overly-relaxed dress code just highlights the shabbily dressed. If everyone around you is wearing jeans, buy a pair of really good ones that fit you excellently.
It’s the new suit. 5. It’s increasingly possible that one person will wear a full suit one day to work, smart trousers and shirt the next, and then sweatpants and a hoodie for an away day.
Your wardrobe now has to work harder than ever to cover you for all occasions. <img class=”size-full” src=”http: //joewears.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable _3.jpg” alt=”im1979_British Office Style in 2024 Whats Actually Acceptable _3″ /> 6. Ask your boss. I know that’s insane advice but hear me out.
Nine times out of ten they’d rather you ask than turn up under/over-dressed. Seriously. 7.
Keep a blazer at work. It’ll come in handy when you need to sharpen up your outfit. Look, let’s be honest: nobody really knows what’s acceptable to wear to work in Britain right now.
Not your boss. Not the CEO of the big bank your mate works for. Not even me.
And I work in this shit for God knows how long. The pandemic broke our concept of workplace uniformity.
Companies have regressed back to their employees dressing how they want, with some stricter firms upholding archaic rules and others throwing it up for interpretation.
In the old days, not caring enough to dress smart for work meant you showed up in jeans and a t shirt. Nowadays it looks like what that dude walked past in the City. EDITED TO ADD: On second thought, plenty of people do know exactly what to wear and how to navigate the new world of workplace dressing – they just work in finance.
Venture capital is the new West Ham supporting – everyone thinks they know how to do it, but no one does it as well as the people who actually do it. Those guys still wear suits. A lot. (Edit updated April 2024: Judging by the conversations I’m having with people again lately, we may be seeing a swing back to smart casual/slightly-more-formal standards compared to the immediately post-lockdown period..but we’re not quite back to pre-pandemic levels yet.
If feels like that month or two in 2021/2022 where no one knew what the fuck was going on and everyone wore what would’ve previously been considered loungewear to important meetings is thankfully over. Offices have realised that the way you dress affects your work output and how others perceive you, even if nobody is telling you what to wear anymore.) The moral of the story is: dress for the office you work at, not the office you THINK you work at. Observe, take notes, and follow the attire of those you work with for at least the first week or two.
Then adjust accordingly. And if all else fails, trouser-and-shirt combo’ll never let you down.
