Employee Engagement Statistics 2026
Employee engagement measures how motivated, committed and satisfied people are with their work and their employer. Engaged employees are happier, more productive and far more likely to stay.
We’ve gathered 40 statistics from the latest 2025–2026 research by Gallup, the CIPD, the HSE, the ONS, Microsoft and others, across five pillars: engagement, productivity, profitability, cost and wellbeing. Every figure links to its source.
Engagement
How engaged people are, and the managers who shape itOnly 20% of employees worldwide were engaged at work in 2025, down from a 2022 peak of 23%.
Source: Gallup, 2026Just 10% of UK employees are engaged at work, half the global average and below Europe's 12%.
Source: Gallup, 2026Europe has the lowest employee engagement of any region in the world, at 12%.
Source: Gallup, 2026In the first half of 2026, 31% of US employees were engaged at work, unchanged from 2025, while 18% were actively disengaged.
Source: Gallup, 2026Global manager engagement has fallen nine points since 2022, driving most of the overall decline.
Source: Gallup, 2026Only 29% of US employees say they received recognition or praise for good work in the past seven days.
Source: Gallup, 2026Only 31% of US employees say someone at work has talked with them about their progress in the past six months.
Source: Gallup, 2026Only 15% of employees say their manager helped them build a career plan in the past six months, down 5 points on 2024.
Source: LinkedIn, 2025In the UK, France and Germany, just 21% of employees feel connected to their manager and 23% feel appreciated.
Source: Achievers, 2026One in three employees (34%) plan to get a new job in 2026, and only 25% envision a long career with their current employer.
Source: Achievers, 2025Employee engagement is twice as high at employers that increased listening in 2025 compared with those that listened less.
Source: Qualtrics, 2026Managers spend only 13% of their time developing their people, versus nearly 40% on immediate problems and admin.
Source: Deloitte, 2025Productivity
Workload, focus and the arrival of AI80% of the global workforce say they lack enough time or energy to do their work.
Source: Microsoft, 2025During core hours, employees are interrupted every two minutes by meetings, emails or pings.
Source: Microsoft, 2025Employees whose organisation has a clear plan for integrating AI have a 15-point higher engagement rate.
Source: Gallup, 202634% of UK employees use generative AI at least monthly, but two-thirds of them have had no AI training at all.
Source: CIPD, 202630% of UK employees say their workloads are too high, linked to a lack of adequate resources.
Source: CIPD, 202647% of managers say more is expected of them and they must work harder than a year ago.
Source: Gartner, 2026Profitability
What engagement does to business resultsBusiness units in the top quartile of engagement achieve 23% higher profitability than those in the bottom quartile.
Source: Gallup, 2026Highly engaged teams show 18% higher productivity (sales) than the least engaged.
Source: Gallup, 2026Introducing new technology such as AI correlates with a 10-point rise in engagement, while layoffs are linked to a 7-point fall.
Source: Qualtrics, 2026Job satisfaction is 91% at organisations highly effective at meeting workforce needs, versus 44% at low-effectiveness ones.
Source: SHRM, 2026Cost & pay
The cost of disengagement, absence and payLow engagement cost the world economy around $10 trillion in lost productivity in 2025, equal to 9% of global GDP.
Source: Gallup, 2026US employers face turnover costs of between $1.3 trillion and $5.1 trillion in 2026 if planned job moves happen.
Source: Achievers, 2025Work-related injuries and ill health from current working conditions cost Great Britain an estimated £22.9 billion (2023/24).
Source: HSE, 2025Just half of UK employees feel they are paid appropriately, rising to 72% among the highest earners.
Source: CIPD, 202663% of employees say they would trade a pay rise for opportunities to upskill in AI and digital skills.
Source: Mercer, 2026An estimated 148.8 million working days were lost to sickness or injury in the UK in 2025, 4.4 days per worker.
Source: ONS, 2026Wellbeing
Stress, thriving and job satisfactionOnly 34% of employees worldwide are thriving in their overall lives, the first improvement in three years.
Source: Gallup, 202646% of UK employees experienced a lot of stress the previous day, above the global (40%) and European (39%) averages and up 5 points.
Source: Gallup, 2026Only 44% of employees say they are thriving at work, down sharply from 66% in 2024.
Source: Mercer, 2026UK employees took an average of 9.4 sick days in the past year, up from 5.8 before the pandemic.
Source: CIPD, 2025964,000 workers in Great Britain suffered work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25.
Source: HSE, 202525% of UK employees say work harms their mental health, while 37% say it has a positive impact.
Source: CIPD, 2026Only 31% of US employees say their company's mission or purpose makes them feel their job is important.
Source: Gallup, 2026Last updated 13/10/2026. All figures come from research published in 2025 or 2026 and link to the original source. Figures marked "US" or "UK" apply to that country only.
The bottom line
Employee engagement matters. Engaged employees create a well-motivated workforce that improves nearly every business outcome — from productivity and profit to retention and wellbeing.
The 2026 picture is stark: only one in ten UK employees is engaged, manager engagement is falling, and stress and sickness absence are rising. Disengagement costs the global economy around $10 trillion a year. The organisations pulling ahead listen more, recognise more, and give managers the time and tools to develop their people.