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People in England should work from home "if they can" to reduce social mixing and slow the spread of the virus, Michael Gove has said.
The Cabinet Office Minister also told BBC Breakfast trials of spectators at sports fixtures would be "paused".
It comes as pubs, bars, restaurants and other hospitality venues in England are told they must have a 22:00 closing time from Thursday.
Full details will be set out by the prime minister in Parliament later.
Boris Johnson is meeting the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and will address the nation in a live broadcast at 20:00 BST on Tuesday.
As well as the early closing time for hospitality venues, he is expected to announce they will be restricted by law to table service only.
In July, the prime minister said people should "start to go back to work now if you can" and last month the government launched a campaign to encourage workers back to offices.
Mr Gove told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We are stressing that if it is safe to work in your workplace, if you are in a Covid-secure workplace, then you should be there if your job requires it.
"But, if you can work from home you should."
Asked if that was a change in advice, Mr Gove said: "Yes."
The new message brings England into line with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which have all advised people to work from home wherever possible throughout the pandemic.
But Mr Gove told BBC Breakfast the country was "not going back to the sorts of measures that we had in the spring" when strict measures were imposed.
Plans for sport with live audiences to return from 1 October in England were also being halted "for the moment" because of the risk of fans mixing on the way to the stadium or during half-time, Mr Gove added.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said a second national lockdown would be "a sign of government failure, not an act of God".
"It would take an immense toll on people's physical and mental health and on the economy. We need a national effort to prevent a national lockdown," he told the Labour Party conference, which is taking place virtually.
'Government says the risk has changed'
Remember all that stuff a few weeks back about going back to the office?
Well, don't. Or at least don't unless you need to.
The government says it is changing tack on its guidance for England because the risk has changed — and that is why it wants pubs to shut early too.
There's been passionate discussion among ministers about how far to go with these measures - some wanting the prime minister to go further, faster — others urging restraint.
It illustrates the central dilemma here: calibrating a sufficient response to a still dangerous virus, while protecting liberties and minimising economic havoc.
On Monday, the UK's Covid-19 alert level moved to 4, meaning transmission is "high or rising exponentially".
The government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has warned there could be 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day by mid-October without further action - which, he said, could lead to more than 200 deaths per day by mid-November.
Prof Calum Semple, an expert in outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool, told BBC Breakfast current data was "tracking the worst-case scenario quite accurately".
He said there was now a rise in hospital admissions, including among women aged 20 to 40, who were at risk of exposure to the virus because of their work in hospitality, caring roles or because they were parents of schoolchildren.
The UK needed "quite a lot more" restrictions in place to prevent the spread, and the hospitality industry will probably have to take another "hit", Prof Semple said.
Andy Wood, chief executive of the Adnams brewery, told the Today programme that the pub industry had "taken the health messages seriously" and it seemed "incongruous" that it was being singled out.
He said the industry was still "on life support" and about 900,000 jobs were at risk.
On Monday, a further 4,368 daily cases and 11 deaths were reported in the UK. Also:
- Further restrictions will also be announced in Scotland on Tuesday
- Restrictions on households mixing indoors will be extended to all of Northern Ireland
- Also from 18:00 on Tuesday, four more counties in south Wales will face new measures, including a 23:00 curfew for pubs and bars
- New measures will also come into force in Lancashire, Merseyside, parts of the Midlands and West Yorkshire from Tuesday.
- Other areas of England, Scotland and Wales are already under local lockdown, with restrictions including a ban on mixing with other households.
The cabinet met on Tuesday morning and Boris Johnson will also chair a Cobra emergency meeting - which will be attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Speaking about the new closing times, a No 10 spokesperson said: "We know this won't be easy, but we must take further action to control the resurgence in cases of the virus and protect the NHS."
Tighter restrictions on pub and restaurant opening times are already in place in parts of north-east and north-west England, and Wales.
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