Recent reports highlight that long-term sickness absence accounts for a significant portion of total workplace absences, making up 53.9% of all sickness-related days off. In total, this represents 3,678.5 days lost due to prolonged health issues.
Short-term absence, defined as sickness lasting less than 28 days on a single occasion, is more common for minor illnesses such as coughs, colds, flu, nausea, and diarrhoea. However, the leading cause of long-term sickness absence remains mental health conditions, which account for 29% of all sickness absence days, regardless of whether the absence is long or short-term.
Addressing Sickness Absence in the Workplace
The council’s human resources team is actively addressing the rising levels of sickness absence by continuously reviewing policies and providing training to line managers to better manage and support employees’ health needs.
National Workplace Absence Trends
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes an annual survey on workplace absence, covering all sectors. The 2024 report, released in June 2025, indicates that the percentage of working hours lost due to sickness or injury dropped to 2% in 2024. However, this marks a slight increase of 0.1 percentage point compared to the pre-pandemic level of 2019.
In total, the UK saw an estimated 148.9 million working days lost due to sickness or injury in 2024.
Increasing Absences in the Public Sector
According to the 2025 CIPD Wellbeing at Work report, which was published in September 2025, the average absence per employee has risen to 9.4 days. This increase is reflected across sectors, with the public sector seeing the highest absence rates at 13.3 days per employee per year, further emphasizing the ongoing challenges of managing health and wellbeing in the workplace.
With these growing absence rates, it is clear that mental health continues to be a major factor contributing to workplace absenteeism. As such, organizations are increasingly focusing on improving employee wellbeing programs to reduce the impact of these issues on both employees and employers alike.
