UK worker confidence is rising

Confidence among workers in the UK is on the rise, according to new data from LinkedIn. As part of our Workforce Confidence Index, we asked more than 1,800 professionals in the two weeks from 15-28 June about their confidence levels in relation to their jobs, finances and career outlooks. The result was a score of 17 on a scale of -100 to 100 – a 31% increase on the previous month's score of 13. While workforce confidence still can't be deemed as high in the UK, it's still good to see it moving in a positive direction.

Those who are actively seeking a job at the moment are also feeling slightly more optimistic, with 23% of this group saying they expect the number of available jobs to increase in the next two weeks, up from 15% in the previous wave of results. With this in mind, more than half (56%) said they planned to increase the amount of time they spent looking for a job in the next two weeks, with 49% saying they expected to make a higher number of job applications during this period. However, it's worth noting that just 19% said they thought the likelihood of receiving a response from a hiring manager would increase in the next fortnight. 

Industry breakdown

Our data shows professionals working in the Construction and Software and IT Services industries are feeling most confident, with a score of 24, followed by Healthcare (21) Finance (18) and Manufacturing (18). Several industries were found to have a score of below 10, with Non-profit feeling the least confident, with a score of 0, followed by Recreation and Travel (4) and Retail (6).

Confidence by focus of role

When we look at job function, we can see that those working in finance roles are currently feeling the most confident, with a score of 25, followed closely by those in Business Development positions (23) and Engineering jobs (21). At the other end of the scale, those holding Arts and Design roles have a score of just 10, followed by Education (14) and Sales (15).

Seniority and age

Director-level professionals have seen their confidence edge lower in recent weeks, notching a score of 22 in our recent survey, a two-point drop from late May. However, those in 'individual contributor' (non-management) roles had a score of 13 in May, rising to 17 in June.

When we filter the results from 15-28 June by generation, we can see that the most confident age groups are Gen Z (under age 25) and Millennials (aged 25-39), both with a score of 19. But there's not really much of a disparity with the other age groups – Gen X (aged 40-54) had a score of 18, while Baby Boomers had a score of 15 (aged 55+).

As part of the survey, we ask members how confident they feel about specific aspects of their finances. Baby Boomers are the least likely to think their savings will increase over the next two weeks, with just 20% expecting a savings boost in this period. In contrast, 35% of Millennials believe their savings will go up in the same time frame. This age group is also most optimistic that their income will increase in the next fortnight, with 18% expecting their salaries, dividends etc to rise in the same period.

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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 1,000 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 from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article.