The Office for National Statistics has published its Sickness Absence in the UK Labour Market Report for 2024, detailing how absences have impacted the UK economy over the last year.
The report shows that the Covid pandemic affected sickness absences in many ways. While the virus may have led to additional absences, measures such as furloughing, social distancing, shielding and increased homeworking helped to reduce other causes of absence in 2020.
However, the reduction of the furlough scheme and its eventual end in September 2021, coupled with the decline in homeworking, shielding and social distancing policies, and new Covid-19 variants, led to a rise in sickness absence in 2021 to above pre-coronavirus levels. Sickness absence increased again in 2022 before starting to fall in 2023.
The sickness absence rate (the percentage of working hours lost because of sickness or injury) was 2.0% in 2024, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points from 2023 (when it was 2.3%) but a 0.1 percentage point increase since the pre-coronavirus 2019 level.
The sickness absence rate – the percentage of working hours lost because of sickness or injury – fell by 0.3 percentage points over the year to 2.0% in 2024.
An estimated 148.9 million working days were lost because of sickness or injury in 2024; this is on average 4.4 days lost per worker.
Groups with the highest rates of sickness absence in 2024 included women, older workers, those with long-term health conditions, people working part-time, people working in the public sector and people working in elementary occupations.
Why people were sick
Minor illnesses were the most common reason given for sickness absence in 2024. This is the third consecutive year minor illnesses have been on top since the fall they experienced because of coronavirus (Covid-19) in 2020 and 2021.
Minor illnesses accounted for 30.0% of occurrences of sickness absence in 2024, followed by:
- Musculoskeletal problems at 15.5%
- “Other” conditions at 15.1%
- Mental health conditions at 9.8%
- Respiratory conditions at 7.3%
Workers living in the South West had the highest sickness absence rate in 2024, at 2.4%, and those living in the East of England and London had the lowest rates, both at 1.5%.
The majority of UK countries and English regions saw a decrease in sickness absence rates between 2023 and 2024. Northern Ireland and the South East both increased by 0.1 percentage points, and Yorkshire and The Humber was unchanged on the year.
The low sickness absence rate in London can largely be explained by the younger age profile of workers living there and the types of occupations that they do. There is also a large concentration of high-skilled jobs in London, which tend to have lower rates of sickness absence.
Public vs private workers
The sickness absence rate for public sector employees in 2024 was 2.9%, and for those working in the private sector it was 1.8%. This is down 0.4 percentage points and 0.1 percentage points, respectively, on the year. Both the public and private sector sickness absence rates are 0.1 percentage points higher than in 2019.
Sickness absence rates for public sector workers have been higher than those in the private sector for every year on record, the ONS said. There are several factors to consider when examining the differences between the public and private sectors, including:
- Differences in the types of jobs between the sectors, some of which have a higher likelihood of sickness than others.
- Workers in the private sector are less likely to be paid for sickness absence than those in the public sector.
- The analysis only counts people as sick if they work fewer hours than they are contracted for and would exclude those who make up lost hours at a later point in the week; individuals in smaller workforces, which are more prominent in the private sector, may be under more pressure to make up any lost hours, but no data are collected on hours made up following sickness absence.
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