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United Kingdom
Employment Index.
The monthly pulse of UK small and medium businesses. Employment, wages, and hours are drawn from 158k employees across 4.7k businesses on the Employment Hero platform, with sentiment, AI adoption and investment measures from our quarterly survey of business leaders conducted in partnership with GWI.
SME health check for employment, wages and hours
The three vital signs of UK SME health: employment, wages and hours worked. Tracked monthly.
Employment growth
A key indicator of SME health is whether there is expansion or contraction. Tracks the average change in headcount across UK businesses on the Employment Hero platform.
Each point is the average month-on-month change in headcount across UK businesses on the Employment Hero platform. The 3M figure reflects the % change in the latest month vs. 3 months prior.
Wage growth
Tracking the value of labour in the marketplace.
Median full-time annual salary
Annual salary is a median calculation across all full-time employees on the Employment Hero platform, representing a total rate inclusive of base salary, bonuses and commissions.
Hours worked
An essential signal of business activity and labour demand, split by employment type. Full-time hours tend to be steady; part-time and casual hours are where the variance lives.
Both figures are the average per employee, per month.
AI pulse check for hiring, adoption and investment
How AI is showing up across UK SMEs, what businesses are doing with AI inside the business, and where they are putting investment.
Quarterly read
AI adoption
Share of UK SMEs actively using AI tools across at least one business function. Drawn from continuous survey with SME leaders.
Based on the latest quarter (Jul-Sep)
Quarterly read
AI investment
Percentage of SMEs increasing their investment into AI infrastructure, tooling and training this quarter. Drawn from continuous survey with SME leaders.
Based on the latest quarter (Jul-Sep)
Business pressure, sentiment and outlook
The mood of the market: how much pressure SMEs are under, how they feel about the next 12 months and where they are putting their money and people.
Business pressure
Share of SMEs reporting high or critical operating pressure across cashflow, hiring, compliance, employee retention and productivity.
Current reading
Based on the latest quarter (Jul-Sep)
Business sentiment
How SMEs feel about the next 12 months overall.
Business sentiment · QoQ (percentage-point change)
Based on the latest quarter (Jul-Sep)
Financial outlook
How SMEs expect their financial trajectory to go over the next 12 months.
Financial outlook · QoQ (percentage-point change)
Based on the latest quarter (Jul-Sep)
Hiring intent
How SMEs are considering workforce planning over the next 12 months.
Hiring intent · QoQ (percentage-point change)
Based on the latest quarter (Jul-Sep)
Survey measures come from a continuous survey of UK SME leaders run with GWI. Quarterly readings show no change figure until a second reading exists.
About this data
Where the figures come from, how often they update and how to read them.
Payroll data
Employment, wages and hours are derived from anonymised and aggregated employee records covering more than 4,800 organisations and 170,000 employees on the Employment Hero platform and update monthly. Organisations skew towards small and medium businesses, so figures may not represent the wider UK labour market. Employment growth is a measure of headcount expansion or contraction. Wage growth is calculated from a median annual salary, including base salary, bonuses, commissions and over time. Where pay is not set as an annual salary, such as for monthly-paid workers, annual pay is estimated or modelled. These estimates are included in the median. Hours are averages per employee, per month based on timesheet/rostering/payroll records.
Survey data
Business pressure, sentiment, financial outlook, hiring intent, AI adoption and AI investment come from a continuous survey of 600 UK SME leaders per quarter, run in partnership with GWI. Quarterly readings are stated with a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) % change. Advanced AI adoption is the % of SMEs where AI is integrated and core to operations. Total AI adoption is top-3-box (custom, company-wide enterprise or departmental). Business pressure is the share of SMBs self-reporting critical or high (top-2-box) operating pressure (across a multitude of elements).
How to read the figures
Wage and hours changes compare the latest month with the month before (MoM), three months earlier (3M) and a year earlier (YoY). Employment growth shows MoM and 3M. The 3M figure compares the latest month with the same point three months earlier; it does not add up the monthly changes. All payroll figures are unadjusted percentage changes, so seasonal patterns such as the Christmas-to-January period will appear in MoM figures. For a like-for-like comparison, use YoY. Survey figures show a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) change, which is the difference between this quarter’s share and last quarter’s, shown in percentage points (pp). For example, a rise from 40% to 44% is +4pp, not a 10% increase.
