A divided workforce?
Think tank: The Work Foundation
Author(s): George Williams; Aman Navani; Stavroula Leka
June 17, 2025
This report from UK think tank the Work Foundation examines workers’ views on health and employment in 2025.
The UK workforce faces a complex web of health and employment challenges that could result in more people prematurely leaving the labour market. While Covid-19 may have accelerated this trend, the underlying drivers pre-date it – the number of people with a work-limiting health condition has grown by 2.5 million (41%) in the last decade.
This paper by the Work Foundation and the Centre for Organisational Health & Well-being, Lancaster University draws on a representative UK-wide survey of 3,796 working people to better understand the nature of health-related challenges facing the UK workforce in 2025.
One in 17 (6%) of participants reporting it was likely that they would leave their job in the next 12 months due to health reasons. Workers already in poor health are twice as likely than workers in good health to say their job negatively affects their physical health and 1.5 times more likely to say it harms their mental health.
Job quality differences are stark between healthy and unhealthy workers. Only 44% of those in poor health have job autonomy, compared to 69% of those in good health. And just 27% of those in poor health have flexibility over their work location, compared to 53% of their healthy peers.
Nearly a quarter of workers aged 16–24 (23%) reported poor mental health and are 1.5 times more likely to state this than any other age group. They are also the age category most likely to report that their job negatively impacts their mental health (34%). Two in five of young workers (43%) are worried that their declining health could push them out of work in the future.
