Revealed: UK office workers’ attitudes towards switching jobs in 2022

Moneypenny surveyed 1,000 UK office workers aged 18 and over on their attitudes towards switching jobs before Covid-19, during the pandemic and now as most regulations have been scrapped.

The research revealed that 14% said they were planning to change their job before Covid-19 and have done so during the pandemic, with the youngest age group (18 to 24-year-olds) most likely to answer this at 44%.

Additionally, 17% answered they were planning to change their job before Covid-19 but had not done so during the pandemic.

The poll also explored why those surveyed didn’t end up changing their job during the pandemic, despite plans to. 51% answered that they thought it was more secure to stay in their current job during Covid-19, 43% responded that they did not feel that the job market was secure and 39% answered it was simply because of Covid-19.

Moneypenny explored the percentages of those who have taken another similar job with more career prospects (41%), taken a break before changing jobs (23%), taking a job with a big promotion (22%), taken a job that caused a demotion to grow within a new business (22%), changed their working to part-time (21%), set up their own business (19%) and finally gone back to study and retrain (14%).

From exploring gender in the survey, only 17% of women compared to 30% of men have taken a job with a big promotion.

The research revealed the most important aspects of jobs are now salary at 46%, flexibility in general at 22%, option to work from home or the office at 11%, company culture at 9% and finally benefits at 6%.

64% said their top priorities when it comes to aspects of their jobs have changed because of Covid-19.

In terms of the percentages of those thinking about changing their job shortly, 37% said they would stay in the same sector, 40% said they would move to a different sector and 23% don’t know.

The top five sectors respondents answered they would be most interested in moving to shortly were creative arts and design, environment and agriculture, accountancy, banking and finance, business, consulting and management and finally energy and utilities.

Moreover, 59% answered in the survey that they are not looking to change jobs shortly.

Joanna Swash, Group CEO at Moneypenny said: “The pandemic has led many of us to re-evaluate our life choices and what is important to us.

“We were surprised to discover that 52% responded in our survey said that they were planning to change their job before Covid-19, but have not done so during the pandemic. However, it was also very interesting to see how many people admitted Covid-19 changed their top priorities when it comes to jobs.

“We hope our findings will help people who are debating whether to change careers and show they are not on their own in their decision”.