Amazon Future of Work & Career Development study in the UK

Some key findings

• Three fifths of UK workers (61%) believe that on-the-job-skills training or apprenticeships are more valuable for preparing people for work today than traditional university degrees. 
• Three in ten (31%) workers also believe that a traditional university degree is as essential for a good career as it was 10 years ago. 
• Almost 4 in 5 (79%) employees think it’s important to learn a new skill to improve their career path in the next 12 months. 
• When thinking about moving to a new job or role, 86% of adults say career development training is essential, very or fairly important and that training programmes offered by a potential employer is more or as important as company culture (84%) and flexible working (75%).
• Workers in the study said working for a company that provides access to career development training would make them feel supported (41%), encouraged (38%), motivated (38%) and valued (37%).
• Additionally, nearly a quarter of workers in the UK (24%) admit they couldn’t afford to pay for training
• When it comes to jobs in the future, 30% of workers are worried they won’t have the training and skills to be relevant in their job in the coming years. Seven in ten workers (71%) believe that people in the workforce today will need to continue to retrain and update their skills to continue working in the future. 
• 14% of employees say they have access to training to help them change their career path, and nearly two in ten (18%) employees say they don’t think they have any access to training with their current employer.

Technical note

The research was carried out by Ipsos on behalf of Amazon. Ipsos interviewed a representative quota sample of 2,139 adults aged 16-75 in the United Kingdom using its online omnibus, and within that, a sample of 1,418 workers (1,294 employees and 124 self-employed adults). The sample achieved is representative of the population with interlocking quotas on Age within Gender, and quotas on Region and Working status.

The data has been weighted to the known offline population proportions for interlocking cells of gender within age and working status, as well as region, social grade and education to reflect the adult population of the United Kingdom. 

Fieldwork was carried out between the 26th and 29th April 2024. 

This research was conducted as part of a global study across Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, South Africa, Slovakia, Spain, and the UK.