Half of workers have a secret crush on a colleague and a third admit they have exchanged flirtatious emails despite being in a relationship.

These are the findings of recruitment outfit Reed, which quizzed 2,000 office workers. According to the research, 38 per cent have gone all the way and had an office romance with growing indications that finding love at work is increasingly acceptable.

A whopping 71 per cent said they wouldn’t mind if their colleagues were having an affair in the office, 89 per cent even said it was none of their business. Good news for the 70 per cent of respondents, who said they would not feel any pressure for them or their partner to leave the company if they started dating.

For many singletons, the office is actually the best place to find a life partner (45 per cent), while 10 per cent had moved in with a colleague once love had blossomed and 7 per cent had even got hitched to them. Yet 70 per cent of romancing colleagues have kept their affairs completely secret.

Lewis Woodward, head of network marketing at Reed, said: “It is surprising that people seem so totally unphased by office romances taking place around them, even though they are reluctant to open up to their own office flings.

“On a more serious note, with one in five workers claiming their employers did have policies around office relationships, anyone thinking about getting involved with someone in the office would be wise to check their employee manual to determine what policies actually exist. It is also worth thinking long and hard about the consequences if things go wrong.”

The survey also found that 81 per cent of companies have no formal policy in place to deal with office relationships.