Curious about the workplace in 2025? We’ve gathered HR statistics from trusted sources and our original research to help you understand the trends and challenges driving change in the British workforce.
Looking for work? Use the findings below to understand the UK job market, identify employer needs, and find out what benefits employees are pushing for.
Working in HR? Explore how employers are navigating talent shortages, boosting retention, and managing a workplace in flux.
7 essential labour market statistics
Unemployment rose slightly in the beginning of 2025 in the UK, while vacancies fell below pre-pandemic figures in March. However, this situation has been inconsistent across different industries, and vacancies increased in some key sectors.
- From December 2024 to February 2025, unemployment rose slightly, standing at 4.4% compared to a post-pandemic low of 3.5% in mid-2022 (Office for National Statistics).
- In the same period, 9.22 million people (or 21.4% of people aged 16-64) were economically inactive, meaning they weren’t working but were also not actively looking for work or readily available to start working. The number of inactive people was about 257,000 above the pre-pandemic level (House of Commons, 2025).
- Employment levels increased by around 680,000 over the last year (House of Commons, 2025).
- There were 2.0 unemployed people for every vacancy from December 2024 to February 2025, up from 1.3 in the first half of 2023 (House of Commons, 2025).
- Competition for job opportunities has grown since mid-2022. The estimated number of vacancies fell to 781,000 in March 2025, the 33rd consecutive quarterly decline. This is the first time since March to May 2021 that vacancies were below the pre-pandemic figure (Office for National Statistics, 2025).
- The impact of this decrease has been felt unevenly across the job market, with Retail experiencing the sharpest declines in permanent and temporary job vacancies, followed by Secretarial/Clerical and Executive/Professional sectors. Construction saw the softest decline in vacancies (KPMG & REC, 2025).
- Meanwhile, in February 2025 vacancies increased quarter-on-quarter in Transport and Storage (+16%), Construction (+12%), and Mining (+7%) (CV Library, 2025).
18 job search statistics
Our data shows that the cost-of-living crisis is pushing people back into the job market.
- Our Future of Work Survey found that 67% of UK workers have changed jobs or are looking to change jobs because of the cost-of-living crisis.
- Of these, 11% have changed jobs or are actively looking for a new job in a different city due to the cost-of-living crisis.
- This number is highest among Gen Z (80%) and Millennials (76%).
- 30% of UK workers believe they don’t receive appropriate pay for their achievements and responsibilities (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2024).
What do job seekers rank as ‘important’?
- According to our Future of Work Survey, 90% of workers rate job security as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ when choosing an employer.
- 90% of workers rate work-life balance as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ when choosing an employer.
- 74% of workers rate salary as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ when choosing an employer.
- 67% of workers rate career growth opportunities as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ when choosing an employer.
- And, in our Future of Flexible Work Report, we found that 71% of UK workers say that flexible hours are ‘important’ or ‘very important’ for considering employment options.
What’s the job search process like in the UK?
The majority of UK professionals continue to look for jobs independently, often using search engines or online job sites.
- Among Millennial workers, the most popular methods for finding job opportunities included:
- using job sites like Indeed and Monster (62%)
- searching on Google (52%)
- looking directly on company websites for open roles (51%) (Cheeky Munkey).
- Young professionals also said they would dislike a recruiter who had poorly designed websites (63%), gave inaccurate job or salary information (57%), or lacked deep expertise in the field they wanted to work in (37%) (Cheeky Munkey).
Our Recruitment Trends Survey found that:
- ‘Job boards’ and ‘recruiters’ are tied as the top two methods hiring managers found most successful in finding qualified applicants.
- Social media and company websites are tied as the next most successful methods.
- Referrals were reported to be the least effective method.
- 57% of hiring managers say they’re likely to invite an applicant for an interview in less than a week.
- 33% of hiring managers are likely to ghost an unsuccessful applicant.
- 61% of hiring managers are likely to contact an applicant’s references.
- 50% of surveyed hiring managers will still request references even if they aren’t initially provided.
For younger job seekers, independently looking for work may be preferable because of the inflated and often drawn-out cost of finding work.
- It typically costs over £500 for graduates to secure their first job out of university (Barclay Simpson).
- 25% of UK university graduates applied for 5+ opportunities before getting their first full-time job (Barclay Simpson).
15 recruiting statistics
According to KPMG, the supply of job candidates grew sharply in March 2025, the fastest since December 2020. However, employers are still struggling to find qualified candidates.
- 1 in 4 businesses planned to make redundancies in the first quarter of 2025, the highest since 2020 (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2025c).
- According to 37% of HR professionals, recruitment is getting easier (WorkBuzz).
- 33% of UK employers also reported having hard-to-fill vacancies, but they were more likely to be reported in the private sector (45% of employers) than the public sector (31% of employers) (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2024/25).
- 36% believed that a shortage of appropriately skilled candidates was one of the main barriers to their recruitment objective. (WorkBuzz).
- In England, most regions filled fewer permanent staff positions in 2023 than the previous year. The only exception was the Midlands, which experienced a staff growth index reading of 51.2, according to a KPMG & REC report (2023).
- Facing tough recruitment prospects, around half (47%) of employers with hard-to-fill vacancies are upskilling their existing staff, while a similar share (43%) has raised pay. (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2023c).
- Our CV and Cover Letter Trends Survey found that hiring managers reported spending an average of 2 minutes and 17 seconds reviewing each CV before deciding whether to contact the applicant for an interview.
- 65% of hiring managers said that they’d be less likely (31%) or somewhat less likely (34%) to hire an applicant whose CV was poorly formatted.
- 50% of surveyed hiring managers say a CV should be 2 pages long.
- 60% of company hiring managers look for a strong personal statement, compared to only 30% of recruiters.
- Roughly half of respondents (49%) expect candidates to submit a cover letter.
- And, 56% of hiring managers believe that candidates who submit cover letters are more passionate about the job.
Our Recruitment Trends Survey also found that it’s common for employers to use ATS in recruiting:
- 71% of hiring managers rely on ATS when recruiting.
- In Recruitment, Business, and Finance, 93% of recruiters and 83% of business and finance hiring managers use an ATS either ‘frequently’ or ‘for certain roles’.
- However, Law and Legal (47%), Construction and Trades (49%), and Government Services (50%) ‘rarely’ or ‘never use’ an ATS.
8 statistics about remote and hybrid work
According to our Future of Flexible Work Report, a more flexible approach to work culture has taken hold across much of the UK, with the vast majority of UK job seekers looking for remote or hybrid options.
- 43% of the UK workforce works hybrid or remote.
- 58% of UK workers consider remote work options ‘important’ or ‘very important’ when contemplating their employment options.
- 66% of UK workers would leave or consider leaving their job if required to return to the office full-time. Of these, 5% would quit immediately, and 30% would return to the office but try to find a new job as fast as possible.
- 53% of workers in the UK said they’d prefer to work remotely even if it meant they wouldn’t be considered for promotion. And, 51% said they’d accept lower pay to work remotely.
- 71% of UK workers say that flexible hours are important or very important for considering employment options.
- 63% of workers in remote-friendly professions say they prefer hybrid policies.
- UK workers, on average, request 2.6 remote workdays per week.
- 19% of workers in remote-friendly professions prefer fully remote work. However, 18% of workers in remote-friendly professions want fully in-office work.
29 diversity and inclusion statistics
While diversity and inclusion remain key talking points four years later, research into the current state of the UK workplace reveals an uneven playing field.
What do we know about BIPOC experiences?
- According to a Savanta report (2023), 1 in 5 people (22%) report having faced discrimination at work, with this figure being much higher for underrepresented groups. That figure rises to:
- 50% among employees from non-Christian religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and East Asian folk religions
- 32% of employees who identify as LGBTQIA+
- Among BIPOC employees in the US and UK, Gen-Z workers are more likely to report discrimination from an employer (21%) — one in three say they’ve left a job or are considering doing so because they cannot express their views (Savanta, 2023).
- 46% of BIPOC employees agree they’ve been passed over for promotion or not hired for a role because of their identity (Savanta, 2023).
- In London, the ethnicity pay gap is 33% for Black Caribbeans and 43% for Black Africans compared to their White British counterparts (Mayor of London, 2020).
- Londoners from ethnic minority backgrounds also send 60–90% more CVs than White British candidates before being contacted (Mayor of London, 2020).
- Our Future of Work Report found that 21% of UK workers have faced racial discrimination at work, with 8% describing it as ‘frequent’ and 9% describing it as ‘severe’.
- 25% of UK workers have faced discrimination at work based on their accent or language proficiency.
Other data on discrimination in the UK workforce
Our Future of Work Report asked UK workers about the kinds of discrimination they faced at work and found:
- 27% of UK workers have faced gender discrimination at work..
- 21% of UK workers have faced discrimination at work based on their sexuality.
- 19% of UK workers have faced religious discrimination at work.
- 32% of UK workers have faced age discrimination at work.
- 29% of UK workers have faced discrimination at work based on their physical appearance.
- 25% of UK workers have faced discrimination at work based on their socioeconomic background.
Data on disability in the workplace
- Unemployment among disabled people in the UK is nearly double the rate among non-disabled people, standing at 7.5% against 4%. (The Inclusivity Project, 2021).
- 50% of managers say they would avoid hiring a neurodiverse candidate. (Nigel Wright, 2023).
The gender pay gap
- Full-time employees: Women are paid 93 pence per every £1 men earn.
- All employees: Women are paid 86.9 pence per £1 men earn.
- Part-time employees: Women are paid 103 pence per £1 men earn.
How are UK businesses addressing diversity and inclusion?
- 48% of UK professionals said their organisation recognised, valued, and celebrated diversity, compared with 36% of professionals globally (WorkDay, 2023).
- 4% of organisations said that diversity wasn’t important in 2022, compared to 10% in 2021 (WorkDay, 2023).
- 57% of UK businesses prioritise equality, diversity, and inclusion when recruiting. (Nigel Wright, 2023).
- 56% of UK respondents report giving employees DEI training, and 44% take measures to encourage applicant diversity (WorkDay, 2023).
- LinkedIn reported a 71% rise in the number of diversity and inclusion-based job roles from 2015–2020 (The Inclusivity Project, 2021).
- However, only 17% of UK professionals track their DEI initiatives (WorkDay, 2023).
- Almost three out of four UK professionals say their organisation has a specific budget for DEI, while one in three plans to increase investment in DEI in the coming year (WorkDay, 2023).
- One in three UK professionals said their companies are investing in AI and other technologies with bias mitigation capabilities (WorkDay, 2023).
- 45% of UK professionals say they’re checking for unconscious bias or indirect discrimination in recruitment, compared with 34% globally (WorkDay, 2023).
15 employee engagement and well-being statistics
Resignations were on the rise entering 2025, and employee engagement across the UK continues to be lower than European countries.
- There were 271,000 resignations in the last quarter of 2024, rising from a low of 182,000 in the third quarter of 2023 (Office for National Statistics, 2023d).
- 47% of UK workers in 2023 agreed that having a job is just a means to make money and nothing more, rising from 38% in 2019 (Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, 2024).
- However, 57% of employees are considering quitting for a job that better supports their well-being (Future of Work Survey).
So, how do UK employees feel in their current jobs?
- Our Future of Work Survey found that 68% of UK workers ‘like’ their job, and 11% say they currently have their ‘dream job’.
- Meanwhile, 9% ‘don’t like’ what they do for work, and 3% ‘hate’ their job.
- 87% report experiencing stress or burnout.
- 50% cite long hours and heavy workloads as the main cause of stress or burnout.
- According to Gallup, the UK workforce was among the least engaged in Europe, with only one in ten UK employees reporting feeling engaged at work.
- Conversely, around 50% of respondents say that time flies at work and 51% say they are always enthusiastic about their job and 49% always feel immersed in their job (Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, 2025).
- 73% of employees think they provide a useful service to their employer, and 51% believe their work is useful for society (Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, 2025).
However, negative feelings about work also proliferated:
- 41% of employees in the UK felt stressed at work in 2025, a 1-point increase from 2024 (Gallup, 2025).
- 16% of UK employees say they felt anger ‘a lot of the day’ yesterday, a 4% decrease from the previous year (Gallup, 2025).
- 57% of employees are considering quitting for a job that better supports their well-being. (Deloitte).
- 25% of all workers said that their work negatively impacted their mental health, while 39% of all workers felt the opposite way (Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, 2024).
- Our report found that 63% of workers rate mental health support as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ when choosing an employer.
7 HR statistics about employee retention, training, and performance management
With employees looking for higher pay, better support, and greater training opportunities, more managers are looking for ways to keep their workforce happy.
- 65% said that retention had gotten more difficult or remained the same (WorkBuzz).
- And, 32% of employers said that ‘offering a competitive salary and benefits’ was one of the biggest retention challenges they currently face (WorkBuzz).
The impact of AI on workers
Our Future of Work Survey found that AI presents an opportunity for many workers:
- 91% of UK workers believe that AI will require constant upskilling and learning to stay competitive.
- And, 84% think knowing how to use AI tools will make them more hireable.
- Far from being a burden, though, 78% say AI will help them learn new skills faster, and 70% think AI will improve their job performance.
Fears about AI’s impact on the labour market are also strong, however.
- 68% of UK workers think AI will increase job competition.
- 61% of professionals fear AI will limit career growth, and 45% worry about being replaced by AI.
Methodology
All data in this report is sourced from publicly available labour market statistics and recruitment trend reports, including the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and other labour-related organizations. Figures cited are drawn directly from these reports without additional analysis or modification.
Additional insights are based on previously published content and internal reports from our website.
Sources
- Barclay Simpson, ‘How Much Does Attending an Interview Cost Graduates?’
- Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, ‘Good Work Index 2024’
- Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, ‘Labour Market Outlook’
- Cheeky Munkey, ‘Millennials’ Recruitment & Interview Process Survey’
- CV Genius, ‘CV and Cover Letter Trends Survey’
- CV Genius, ‘Recruitment Trends Survey’
- CV Genius, ‘The Future of Flexible Work’
- CV Genius, ‘The Future of Work Survey’
- CV Library, ‘February 2025: Job Market Analysis’
- Deloitte, ‘‘DEI Within the Global Workforce– Where to Next?’
- Deloitte, ‘Employee Wellness in the Corporate Workplace’
- Gallup, ‘State of the Global Workforce’
- House of Commons Library, ‘UK Labour Market Statistics’
- KPMG & REC, ‘UK Report on Jobs’
- Mayor of London, ‘‘Voices of the Underrepresented’
- McKinsey & Company, ‘Competition for Talent will Remain Fierce in the UK Despite Economic Uncertainty’
- Nigel Wright, ‘Equality, Diversity, & Inclusion in the Workplace Report 2023’
- Office for National Statistics, ‘Labour market overview, UK: April 2025’
- Office for National Statistics, ‘Estimated Number of Job-to-job Resignations in the United Kingdom From 4th Quarter 2001 to 4th Quarter 2024’
- Office for National Statistics, ‘Unemployment Rate’
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ‘Labour Productivity and Utilisation’
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ‘Labour Productivity Forecast’
- Savanta, ‘Understanding Bias, Discrimination, and its Impact on Society’
- The HR Director, ‘One in Three UK Workers Are Currently Quiet Quitting’
- WorkBuzz, ‘State of Employee Engagement 2024/25’
- WorkDay, ‘UK Businesses Embracing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, But More Strategic Approach Needed’
- Zest, ‘Report on the Cost of Living Crisis’
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