Chief executive Marco Amitrano told The Times that policies introduced after the pandemic had “good intentions” but had also had negative consequences.

He said: “Covid didn’t help and in this country in particular, post-Covid, some of the policies that the public sector — or the private sector — implemented focused on wellbeing, all with good intention, but like everything with good intention, has had some adverse consequences.

“Work from home, the focus on mental health and wellbeing, and giving almost the ‘non-effective’ diagnosis of it or saying ‘do you know what, if you feel bad today, just go home’ rather than ‘let me help you’… most employers today would look back and say it was the right thing for us to do, but maybe we should have put some clearer parameters around it.”

He said employers should instead “actively engage with people”, adding: “Once you’ve said ‘just go home’ then it’s out of sight and out of control.”

Several prominent employers are now encouraging staff to return to the office, concerned that home working is holding back productivity and preventing early-career staff from progressing professionally.

Staff at PwC are required to be in the office or with clients three days a week, or 60% of the time. Hargreaves Lansdown has ordered staff to return to the office three days a week from the beginning of 2027.

Barclays initially ordered its 45,000-strong workforce to increase attendance from two days to three days a week from 5 October, but pushed back the date until next year following union pushback.

The Government is planning new laws that will make it harder for employers to prevent staff from working from home. Employers would be required to hold a face-to-face meeting with the employee and give a “justifiable reason” before refusing a work-from-home request.

Mr Amitrano did not link home working directly to youth unemployment during his interview, but the issue is close to his own work. He co-chairs the Professional & Business Services Council, which is trying to improve access to jobs in fields such as accounting, law and consulting, and PwC is working with the Labour adviser Alan Milburn on a review of benefits for young people. About a million 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK are not in employment, education or training (Neets).

Speaking about the number of young people who are Neet, he said: “You have to recognise that success… is not reducing it to zero, because there are different reasons why someone might be in a position that you call Neet. But… it’s got to a point where it’s too high.”

PwC cut its graduate intake to 1,300 last year from 1,500 in 2024, which it blamed at the time on a tougher market for advisory services. But Mr Amitrano insisted the firm had “maintained an absolute commitment to the hiring of young people”. It has taken on 1,300 graduates this year.