“I don’t enjoy my job, but I can’t leave…” is a sentence I’ve heard a lot in the past year. It seems that many people are staying put for financial reasons, because of family responsibilities, market uncertainty or because leaving would create more life stress than they can handle. Vacancies are down, redundancies are up, and the desire to cling to a “safe” job is high.
The UK job market is currently highly competitive and cautious, with national unemployment resting at five per cent (compared to three per cent in 2022). The picture is worse in London, where it sits at six per cent in London, and for those under 24, who are currently seeing rates of 16 per cent. Vacancies are down, redundancies are up, and the desire to cling to a “safe” job is high.
According to data from the Office for National Statistics on the UK job market, in the first quarter of 2026, there were around 173,000 job resignations, down from 204,000 in the previous quarter. Whereas, at the height of the Great Resignation in the second quarter of 2022, resignations reached 446,000. Plus, businesses are prioritising cost management over expansion, leaving job vacancies below pre-pandemic levels.
You would think that high retention would be great news for employers, but Phil Lewis, a coach for leaders in large businesses, says that unhappy employees who stay can cost more than those who leave. “The leaver shows up in the turnover figures, but the stayer is present in body and absent in everything that matters,” Lewis explains. “Meetings start to drift, the arguments stop, and effort drains away. What remains is compliance dressed up as commitment. Because energy in a business is relational, the flatness does not stay contained. It spreads.”
