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Anatomy of Work Index 2021: U.K. Findings [Infographic]

January 14th, 2025

[Resource] Anatomy of Work Index 2021: U.K. Findings (Article Banner Image)

Summary

U.K. knowledge workers spend just 27% of their time on skilled work, with the rest lost to meetings, status updates, and duplicated efforts. This growing gap between how we think about work and how we do it is contributing to rising burnout. The Anatomy of Work Index explores how teams can reduce inefficiencies and build more sustainable ways of working.

The way we think about work has changed. But how we work hasn’t kept up.

U.K. workers are losing 61% of their time to ‘work about work’ (e.g. meetings and status checks), with just 27% left for skilled work (e.g coding or market analysis) and 12% for strategy (e.g. forward-looking planning). Similar to global averages, U.K. workers lose 227 hours to duplicated work/work that is no longer relevant and 157 hours to unnecessary meetings every year.

These barriers to productivity are fueling burnout in the U.K., with three-quarters (75%)—above the global average—experiencing it in 2020.

To understand how the office has changed, what’s working and what’s not, and to shine a light on better approaches, we analysed the attitudes and behaviours of over 13,000 knowledge workers globally, including 2,010 in the U.K.

The Anatomy of Work Index 2021 explores how individuals, teams, and entire organisations can bring clarity to the chaos through work management, reset for resilience, and flourish as they move forward.

To learn more, read the full report.