Signs of new year's optimism as UK worker confidence rises

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Confidence levels among the UK workforce were on the rise as we ended 2020, LinkedIn data shows, suggesting a degree of optimism for the start of a new year. LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index shows that people were starting to feel more confident about jobs, finances and their longer term career prospects at the end of December, with the overall confidence score rising to 19, four points above the score from November. Confidence has gradually risen from the low of 13 seen in early October, the month that the government’s furlough scheme was due to end before an extension was announced on 31 October. By December, people were feeling more confident about their current role and longer term career prospects, but it was financial confidence that rose most sharply, up from 2 in October to 11 in late December.

The gender confidence gap

Though confidence is on the rise in general, data over several months shows a consistent gap between men and women, with men more confident on all scores. The most recent data shows quite a striking difference in overall confidence, with men at 24 and women at 13. However, women’s confidence levels have consistently risen since October, nearly doubling in that time, while men’s scores – though higher than women’s – did fluctuate slightly over the same period.

In the latest wave of data, men’s confidence has risen on all fronts, but particularly when it comes to their current role: job confidence rose from 29 in early December to 34 in the second half of the month. In the same period, job confidence was at 26 among women, up two points. Comparatively, women are less confident overall, and the score on financial confidence even dropped slightly between early and late December. In the latest data, women scored 5 compared to 16 among men. Women are less than half as likely to be confident about their career progression than men, scoring 7 in the latest data, compared to 22 for men.

Generational shifts

As we came to the end of the year, there was a shift in outlook among different generations. Millennials are now significantly more confident than baby boomers and gen X professionals, overtaking boomers as the most confident group by age. The change was particularly sharp, with millennials gaining 10 points in confidence on the previous wave, while the scores for the other generations moved only slightly.

Notably, financial confidence is up among millennials, up six points to 15 in the latest wave of data, while confidence fell among baby boomers and remained low – a score of only 6 – for gen Xers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the changing rules and restrictions in place to deal with the ongoing pandemic, job confidence has fluctuated among the two younger generations for the past three months, and has noticeably dropped among baby boomers.

Most people’s confidence in their longer term career prospects is on the rise, though among gen X it remains lower than that seen in October and November. Those earlier on in their career paths are significantly more confident than older generations – millennials now score 23 on career outlook, compared with 12 for gen X workers and 13 for baby boomers.

Methodology:

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey that is distributed to members via email every two weeks. More than 500 members from the UK respond in each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we’re able to get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyse data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership and overall market population are not accounted for. Confidence index scores are calculated by assigning each respondent a score (-100, -50, 0, 50, 100) based on how much they agree or disagree with each of three statements, and then finding the composite average score across all statements.

Neil Basu and Alex Gunther from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article.