Employee Health Report: The Most Common Sick Leave Reasons in the UK in 2024
Nationally, sick leave rates in the UK have increased by 55% since 2019, and are up 6% since 2022 - but why is the country getting so much sicker every year?
Sick leave reasons in the UK are widespread, from poor general health to work and family related issues, causing wider productivity issues in the valuable days lost to companies.
To do a deep dive into how sickness has affected UK industries, Access People, part of The Access Group, gathered the data of absences recorded from over 1,775 small and medium-sized businesses, to track the causes for sickness absence that are on the rise.
By using HR software, employers can manage their HR and people strategy to help manage absences as best as possible and spot common trends across dates, reasons, departments and employees, enabling companies to work with staff to see if there’s any way they’re able to help.
The 2024 sick leave report across 18 industries revealed that businesses saw an average amount of 128 days lost to sickness in the last year - up 6% compared to 120 in 2022.
As well as the rise in sick leave taken, the data identified 20 main categories of sick leave reasons noted down by businesses. Of these, 12 categories saw a rise in reasons for sickness absence from 2022 to 2023, and a decline in another eight categories in this period.
The most common sick leave reasons in the UK
The research by Access People highlights that overall, sick day levels are continuing to increase significantly due to various reasons.
Sick leave reasons have changed year-on-year across businesses. However, the reason for the biggest hike in days taken off for sickness in the last year is actually related to childcare issues - not personal sickness.
This is up by 182% in the last year - and could be due to workers needing to take time off for unplanned child care requirements - whether it’s due to other plans falling through, an emergency, or simply because their child is unwell.
Employees are allowed statutory time off to deal with emergencies involving a dependant. However, the fact it’s risen so much in the last year indicates a change - perhaps staff feel more confident telling their managers about using this as a reason for taking time off. This is as the new Carer’s Leave Act came into force recently, which entitles carers to a week’s unpaid leave to give or arrange care for a dependent.
Businesses also saw a stark rise in absence in 2022-2023 due to increased reports of UTI’s (50%), cancer (33%), diabetes (33%), and stomach problems (18%). Although continued treatments may reflect the higher reports for cancer.
Further reasons for increased absence over this period include headaches (16%), surgeries and operations (8%), earache (7%), infection (5%), and food poisoning (2.44%).
The rise in absence for headaches and stomach problems may be partially due to the rise of long-covid symptoms in 2020 which were still prevalent in 3.1% of the population in 2023.
However, some of these sick leave reasons could also be a sign of deeper issues such as burnout, stress or a general rise in sickness, either industrially, or on an individual or company-by-company basis - with reports of mental health absences up by 36.45% from 2019-2023.
Work related sickness absences are often stated as high, such as anxiety, musculoskeletal and injuries. According to HSE, the average person suffering from a work-related illness took around 15.8 days off work each year. However, the Access People data does not see any clear indications of types of sickness absence linked to the work of employees, apart from the possibility of mental health.
Sickness days relating to mental health saw a peak in 2021 and 2022 - falling slightly in the last year, in a sign that businesses have put their foot on the gas and addressed burnout challenges that surfaced after the pandemic.
A year-on-year analysis of reasons for sickness absence
The research revealed that businesses are faring differently year by year when it comes to the reasons they receive for sick leave.
The majority of businesses have seen a rise in certain sick leave reasons in recent years, with some rising at a faster pace than others, and vice versa.
Mental health
How mental health sickness absence has changed
The rise of poor mental health since 2019 (36%) may be partly due to employees in the UK not using all their annual leave entitlement, with days of holiday taken dropping by 7.6% from 2022-2023 alone, which can increase the likelihood of burnout and stress related sick leave.
Encouraging employees to take their full holiday entitlement is important for businesses, with stress forcing one in five workers (19%) to call in sick, according to mental health charity Mind. The majority of these people (93%) have also lied to their boss about the real reason for taking time off, citing everything from stomach upsets, housing problems and the illness of a loved one as reasons for their absence, highlighting an issue with this topic being feared as taboo in businesses.
To overcome the issue of mental health masking among employees, businesses can work with HR software to keep an eye on both annual leave bookings and sick leave requests, to spot any patterns or issues, enabling them to identify where they can offer help, or help prevent burnout with holiday reminders.
The fear of taking time off for stress and mental health may be reflected in the research by Access People, with increased reports of stomach problems (18%), and headaches (16%) from 2022-2023 possibly hiding wider issues around stress and poor mental health.
Childcare as a dependent
The 183% rise in parents taking sick leave to care for their children could be a result of staff returning to more office-based roles with less ability to be at home, along with viruses and diseases settling into their pre-pandemic seasonal patterns and being easily spread around schools.
While taking this time off may be a necessity for parents, it may also reduce their ability to take further paid sick leave for themselves should they become ill.
This leans into a wider issue where 67% of parents are taking their annual leave to cover childcare commitments, taking away from the time they may need to rest, recover, and reduce the likelihood of burnout.
The UK’s leading personal illness cause for sick leave
In 2022-2023 alone, the Access People data recorded a 50% rise in sick leave absences for UTIs among businesses. This comes after an NHS report citing over 1.8 million hospital admissions involving the infection in the past five years.
With women 30 times more susceptible to the infection than men, reports of antibiotic resistance and treatment being less compatible with female bodies could be causing repeated or prolonged time off sick for recovery.
Diabetes
Absence leave for diabetes in the UK rose by 33% from 2022-2023, in line with the ‘rapidly escalating’ diabetes crisis reported by Diabetes UK in 2023 when cases topped 5 million for the first time nationwide.
While there is no one reason for diabetes, the rise in cases and sick leave for the condition could be partly associated with the cost-of-living crisis and its negative impact on social deprivation; with factors including income, access to healthy food, and poorer access to healthcare shown to increase the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Coronavirus rates continue to drop
In the wake of the pandemic from 2019 to 2023 reports of coronavirus as a reason for sick leave rose by 5914% - not surprising when it was barely reported prior to January 2020.
However, in the last year, sickness rates due to coronavirus has dropped by over half (55%), suggesting that lockdown measures, vaccines and a willingness to take time off when sick with other reasons has continued to avoid the spread of illness.
With technology making hybrid and remote working easier post-pandemic, too, the continued drop may be down to it being easier for workers to stay at home should they have any symptoms of coronavirus.
How can businesses understand the impact and causes of sickness absence?
Getting sick is a part of life, and it's crucial for businesses to make their teams feel supported in taking sick leave to recuperate. It’s also important for businesses to understand the reasons for sick leave in their business to support their workforce and work to reduce sick leave where possible.
Through the adoption of HR software to document sick days, companies can pinpoint ongoing issues, implement strategies for improvement, and assess the need for an audit of attendance practices.
Selecting suitable absence management software for your needs is important, especially as your business expands and keeping track of every employee's attendance becomes more complex. Ensuring you have the right business process can help:
- Spot patterns to identify frequent causes of absence
- Prevent burnout by encouraging staff to book holiday
- Boost engagement with a tailored approach that keeps everyone in the loop
- Understand absences with the reasons why unengaged employees are taking time off.
Download the 2024 Sick Leave Report
Read our latest Sick Leave Report to see how your industry is faring.
Methodology
Access People, part of the Access Group, looked at anonymised sickness leave data taken from 1,775 businesses in 18 sectors, categorising by best fit for reasons of sickness. It analysed sickness absence data for the full years of 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, to understand the correlation between each year.
