As part of Happiness at Work Week, we brought our community together at our St Cross Street Workspace with The Happiness Index to explore what workplace happiness looks like in the UK. Hosted by Matt Phelan, co-founder of The Happiness Index, TEDx speaker and author, the session brought together the latest findings from the 2026 Global Workplace Happiness Report with insights from our own Work.Life member community.
Behind the UK findings are 24,129 employees and more than 500,000 answered questions, collected between February 2025 and January 2026. The survey covers eight areas of working life, from psychological safety and autonomy to recognition, career progression and workload. It also looks beyond how people feel about work to the factors that shape engagement and whether they intend to stay.
On almost every measure a leadership team would think to check, the UK comes out ahead of the global average. Workers here are happier, more engaged and more positive about their employers than their international peers.
They are also leaving in greater numbers. The data shows why those two things can be true at the same time.
The UK sits above the global benchmark on every headline measure in the report.
| Measure | UK | Global |
|---|---|---|
| Happiness Index score | 7.6 | 7.3 |
| Happiness | 7.7 | 7.3 |
| Engagement | 7.6 | 7.3 |
| Energetic connections | 8.4 | 7.7 |
| Team dynamics | 8.3 | 7.8 |
| Employee net promoter score | +8 | +1 |
The strongest results in the UK dataset are about people. Energetic connections, which measures the quality of day-to-day working relationships, and team dynamics both rank near the top of the ten-point scale. Advocacy follows, with UK employees recommending their employers at eight times the net rate of their global peers.
The Happiness Index describes these relationships as a shock absorber, and the wider findings support that view. Good colleagues and effective line managers are compensating for problems elsewhere in the organisation. They keep day-to-day work functioning, but they do not resolve the underlying issues.
Only 62% of UK workers intend to stay with their employer over the next twelve months, compared with 72% globally. Meanwhile, 22% say they are likely to leave, compared with 14% worldwide.
The UK therefore combines strong employee advocacy with weaker retention. That matters because positive engagement scores can mask an intention to leave. Employees may have good relationships with colleagues and managers while still deciding to move on.
For a business of 30 people, a ten-point retention gap equates to roughly three additional employees leaving each year. The cost extends beyond recruitment. Replacing those employees can mean six to nine months of salary when recruitment, notice periods and time to productivity are included. Vacancies also delay projects and increase the workload for the people who remain.
The most useful analysis in the report looks at what is most closely linked to positive outcomes for employees.
Belonging stands out. People who feel they belong are much more likely to be happy at work, engaged in what they do and intending to stay with their employer. Of all the factors measured, belonging has the strongest relationship with each of these outcomes.
Yet the UK scores 6.5 for belonging, compared with 7.1 globally – an 8.5% deficit. The factor most closely linked to whether people intend to stay is also one of the areas where the UK performs weakest.
Belonging is not the same as having good relationships. Relationships measure whether people like working with those around them. Belonging asks whether they feel part of something larger, see their values reflected in the organisation and would still feel connected if their closest colleague left. UK workers score strongly on relationships but significantly lower on belonging. That helps explain how someone can genuinely recommend their employer while still responding to a recruiter.
One employee in the report answered: “The values on the wall don’t match how those at the top act. We are purely seen as numbers, not people.”
The Happiness Index places belonging under Freedom, alongside authenticity and autonomy, while physical environment sits under Safety. Both are conditions the organisation creates, rather than traits employees bring with them.
Belonging is built through everyday interactions. It can come from people in different teams talking over coffee, founders being visible beyond formal updates, or a new starter meeting colleagues across the business. These moments depend, at least in part, on people being together often enough for connections to form. Where and how a team works is therefore more than an operational decision. It can shape belonging, which is closely linked to retention.
The findings by company size and seniority matter most for founders.
Companies with 11 to 50 employees score 6.9 on resources and progression, compared with 7.7 for companies with more than 1,000 employees. The businesses with the least infrastructure for addressing these issues also have the largest gap to close, often without a dedicated HR function or significant people budget.
Seniority shows an even sharper divide. Senior executives score 8.4 on authenticity, which measures whether people can be themselves at work. Entry-level employees score 6.0. That 2.4-point gap exists within the same organisations, and it is concentrated among the people a growing business needs to retain for the longest.
Collaboration shows another weakness. The UK scores 6.0, compared with 7.0 globally and 6.6 across Europe. Feedback is similarly weak at 5.7, against 6.4 globally, with employees reporting that communication from leadership often comes when something has already gone wrong.
Silos are not a large-company problem that arrives later. In a team of 20 or 40, splitting people between home, uninspiring rented space and a few desks in a quiet building can make collaboration harder. With fewer people, there are also fewer opportunities to absorb the impact when those connections weaken.
Workspace cannot create belonging on its own, but it can make collaboration easier. A place where people naturally cross paths, meet other businesses and have reasons to spend time together creates more opportunities for the relationships and informal interactions that support belonging. It is a facilitator, not a solution.
The national findings show what is happening across the UK. Our survey of 105 Work.Life members gives us a closer look at how that plays out within our own community.
Members score higher than the UK benchmark across every measure, with the biggest gaps appearing in the areas the national report identifies as challenges.
| Measure | Work.Life members vs UK benchmark |
|---|---|
| Effective collaboration | +28% |
| Belonging | +21% |
| Receiving feedback | +15.8% |
| Values alignment | +16.2% |
| Organisational trust | +6.8% |
| Team productivity | +8% |
Collaboration is one of the UK’s weakest national scores. Work.Life members score 28% higher. Belonging is the factor most closely linked to retention in the report, yet the UK sits 8.5% below the global benchmark. Work.Life members score 21% above the UK benchmark.
The same pattern appears in advocacy. Members recorded an employee net promoter score of +18, compared with +8 across the UK.
Two questions were asked only of members. When asked how much being happy at work improves their performance, they gave an average score of 9.1 out of 10. When asked how effectively their current workspace enables them to work productively, they scored it 7.9.
“People know when they are doing their best work. What I find interesting is how strongly they connect that with being happy at work. The environment matters, but ultimately it is the experience around the work that makes people want to perform and stay.” – Olya Yakzhina, Head of People and Culture
The UK findings point to a clear challenge for smaller businesses. People can be happy with their colleagues while still feeling disconnected from the wider organisation, which can affect whether they see themselves staying.
Smaller teams have fewer layers and fewer opportunities to absorb that disconnect when it starts to appear. Creating the right conditions for people to work together and feel part of the wider team therefore matters.
Workspace is one part of that. It cannot create culture or belonging on its own, but the right environment can make collaboration easier and give people more opportunities to build relationships. It’s something we see every day across the Work.Life community.
You want to see what that looks like for your team, book a tour of a Work.Life space and see where happy teams work.
Tailored solutions for growing teams
Adding 10 or more team members? That’s exciting — and we’re here to help! For teams like yours, we offer custom membership options designed to fit your needs perfectly.
Let us know some more information using the form below — we usually reply within an hour during business hours. Prefer to chat? Give us a call on 020 3349 8269 — we’d love to hear from you!