Nearly half of Britons agree that British workers need to “work harder”

• Britons are twice as likely to agree than disagree that British workers need to work harder (46% agree; 24% disagree)
• 1 in 3 (33%) agree that British workers are “amongst the laziest in the world”; 38% disagree
• The public is split on whether the amount of effort British workers put into work is currently more (35%) or less (33%) than 20 years ago
• 2019 Conservative voters are more likely than 2019 Labour voters to agree with both -  that British workers need to work harder and that British workers put less effort into work than 20 years ago
• 48% say that the average working person in Britain has a worse work ethic than the average person in China; 21% say it’s better.

Earlier this week, it was revealed via a leaked audio recording that, five years ago, Conservative Party leadership candidate, Liz Truss, said that British workers lacked the “skill and application” found in other countries, specifically China. She further remarked that, in order for Britain to become a more prosperous nation, “more graft” was needed.  
Nearly 1 in 2 (46%) members of the British public agree that British workers need to work harder, with a further 1 in 3 (33%) agreeing that British workers are amongst the laziest in the world.

The sentiment that British workers need to work harder is shared more strongly by those who voted Conservative in the 2019 General Election than by those who voted Labour: 58% of Conservative voters agree that British workers need to work harder compared to 30% of Labour voters.

Britons are further divided along political lines when asked how they feel the British work ethic has evolved over the past 20 years: nearly 1 in 2 2019 Conservative voters (47%) feel the average working person in Britain puts in less effort than in the past, compared to 23% of 2019 Labour voters.

Despite this, Conservative voters are more likely than Labour voters to agree that British people have the necessary skills to compete in the global workforce (68% compared to 54% Labour voters), and that there are enough jobs in Britain that allow workers to utilise their skills (71% compared to 42% Labour voters). Amongst the British public overall, agreement with these statements is 58% and 56%, respectively.

How Britain compares to its past, its peers and its foreign counterparts

The British public is split on how the British work ethic has evolved over the past 20 years: 1 in 3 say they think people put in more effort today than 20 years ago (35%), with a similar proportion (33%) saying they think people put in less effort today.  Younger people are more likely than older ones to say that more effort is being put in today than in the past.

Half of working Britons (52%) say they put “a lot of effort” into their current job, with a further 31% saying they put in “a moderate amount of effort.” When asked how they think the effort they put into their current job compares to the average working person in Britain, half (49%) think they put in more effort, with a further 4 in 10 (37%) saying they put in about the same level of effort.  Fewer than 1 in 10 (8%) say they put in less effort than the average working person in Britain.

When asked about how the British work ethic compares to the work ethic of other nations, half (48%) agree that the average working person in Britain has a worse work ethic than their equivalent in China, and 2 in 5 (40%) say a worse work ethic than a worker in India. Opinions are mixed on how the British work ethic compares to those of workers in the US, EU, and most other countries:

Trinh Tu, Managing Director of Public Affairs at Ipsos in the UK, said:

Whilst many of us believe that British workers have the skills to compete globally and the opportunities to put these skills to use, we are visibly divided by political party line and age when it comes to perceptions of whether British workers are trying hard enough or putting in the same effort as in the past. However, we do not have these doubts when it comes to our personal effort, with the majority of us believing we work hard and half of us claiming we work harder than our peers.  

Technical note

Ipsos interviewed a representative quota sample of 1,000 adults aged 18-75 in Great Britain. Interviews took place on the online Omnibus on 17th-18th August 2022. Data has been weighted to the known offline population proportions. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error.