The State of Sickness Absence: What the 2025 ONS Data Means for UK

An Opinion Piece by The Well Crowd 

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released its latest data on sickness absence across the UK labour market, providing an important temperature check on workforce health and productivity as we move further into the post-pandemic era. While the headline rate of sickness absence has fallen, from 2.3 per cent in 2023 to 2.0 per cent in 2024, the underlying story reveals deeper challenges and structural pressures that UK employers can no longer afford to ignore. 

A Decline That Masks Persistent Strain 

At first glance, the fall in absence rates looks encouraging: 148.9 million working days were lost in 2024, down by nearly 15 million from the previous year. Yet this remains almost 10 million days higher than before the pandemic, and the average of 4.4 days lost per worker continues to signal significant health-related disruption. 

What’s more, the ONS stresses caution due to smaller Labour Force Survey sample sizes, meaning trends must be read with context. Behind the numbers lies a workforce still balancing the aftershocks of COVID-19, cost-of-living stress, and the ongoing rise in chronic and mental health conditions. 

Mental Health and Musculoskeletal Issues: The Core of Modern Absence 

While minor illnesses remain the top cause of absence (30 per cent of cases), mental health conditions now account for 9.8 per cent, and musculoskeletal problems 15.5 per cent. Together, these two categories represent a large proportion of long-term and preventable absences – issues that link directly to job design, workload management, leadership culture, and access to early intervention. 

The ONS data confirms what wellbeing professionals have long observed: the boundary between physical and mental health is increasingly blurred. Stress, anxiety, and burnout continue to manifest somatically,  through fatigue, pain, and recurring illness, and are now among the most economically significant forms of “hidden absence”. 

Persistent Inequality: Who Is Most Affected 

The 2025 data again shows wide disparities. Women’s sickness absence (2.5 per cent) remains notably higher than men’s (1.6 per cent), with the gap consistent across all age groups. Older workers, part-time staff, and those with long-term health conditions face the highest rates, reinforcing how flexibility, inclusion, and health equity must sit at the centre of workplace wellbeing strategies. 

Sectoral and regional gaps are also striking. Public sector workers record a 2.9 per cent absence rate versus 1.8 per cent in the private sector, a difference explained partly by occupational risk but also by job pressure and workforce size. Regionally, the South West has the highest absence rate (2.4 per cent) and London the lowest (1.5 per cent), reflecting differing demographics, job types, and income profiles. 

The Economic and Cultural Cost 

Each percentage point of sickness absence equates to billions in lost productivity. But beyond economics, there’s a cultural cost: teams under strain, uneven workloads, and declining morale. Employers often respond to absence with reactive policy, rather than addressing upstream causes such as leadership behaviour, psychological safety, workload norms, or insufficient recovery time. 

The data also shows that part-time workers have consistently higher absence rates (2.6% vs 1.9% for full-time). This may partly reflect the demographics of part-time work (e.g. higher female representation and caring responsibilities), but it also signals that flexible work is not yet synonymous with “healthy” work. The challenge now is to design flexible models that genuinely support wellbeing rather than stretch people thinner. 

What This Means for UK Employers 

The takeaway is clear: the UK’s sickness absence problem is less about isolated illness and more about sustainable workforce health. Employers that treat wellbeing as a strategic, data-driven priority, not a discretionary benefit, will be the ones to attract and retain resilient talent. 

Practical implications include: 

• Reframing wellbeing as risk management, addressing the root causes of mental health and musculoskeletal absence can mitigate significant productivity losses. 
• Designing age-inclusive, gender-sensitive health policies, recognising that women and older workers face disproportionate strain. 
• Embedding early intervention and prevention, through proactive line management training, access to occupational health, and evidence-based wellbeing support. 
• Using absence data intelligently, combining HR analytics with sentiment and engagement insights to identify hotspots before they escalate. 

A Moment for Leadership 

The Well Crowd sees this report as a wake-up call. While sickness absence rates have improved slightly, the overall pattern reflects a workforce still operating close to its limits. The UK market is entering an era where wellbeing performance will increasingly define business performance. The organisations that thrive will be those that measure what matters, and act with empathy, evidence, and accountability. 

Source: Office for National Statistics (ONS). Sickness absence in the UK labour market: 2023 and 2024. Released 4 June 2025.