Brits are booking their travel on the go more than ever before as global travel search site Skyscanner reports a 152 per cent global increase in flight searches on handheld devices in the last year.

One in five Brits have now booked flights on a mobile or tablet; the most common place to book flights when out of the home is work, with 20 per cent admitting to booking holidays while in the office, followed by in the pub and while out for dinner.

While 64 per cent of searches come from desktop, searches on mobile devices represent 18 per cent and tablet accounts for 18 per cent of the flight searches in the UK.

Although travellers are still primarily using desktop for their flight searches, as more people own smartphones and tablets, travel searches and bookings are starting to shift to mobile, as it has been reflected in the dramatic growth of searches made via hand-held devices in the past year.

According to Skyscanner data, the percentage of UK travellers that use a smartphone to search for their flights has increased 88 per cent in 2014 compared to 2013 and searches on tablet have also accelerated with a 31 per cent increase.

This increase is not limited to searching, with Brits now also feeling more confident than before in booking on the go, apparent from the 79 per cent increase of bookings in mobile.

Tablets, which have started to gradually replace desktops and laptops, have seen a 40 per cent increase in bookings. 

The study also analysed the trends in how and when people plan their travel on different devices.  Mondays are the peak day for booking flights on both desktops and handheld devises, however, bookings reach their highest peak on desktops at lunchtime (13:00) while the peak time for mobiles and tablets is 21:00.

The data also found that January is the peak month for Skyscanner app downloads by British travellers, following the surge of mobile and tablet sales over the Christmas period.