The report, commissioned by the Director of Labour Market Enforcement (DLME), is the most comprehensive research to date on precarious work in the UK and the first to assess workers trajectories over time to chart their changing career fortunes. It is the foundation for the UK’s biggest survey on labour market exploitation, the Working Lives Survey, which will open in 2025.

The researchers analysed data from the Understanding Society survey (2009-2022), which tracks members of 40,000 households to understand how life in the UK is changing.

They found that 10-10.7% of the UK workforce is in precarious work and that, contrary to some recent assessments, this proportion has been relatively stable since 2009 when tracking began¹.

Precarious workers were more likely to be female, younger and working class. They also tended to be concentrated in the hospitality, retail and construction industries, and were half as likely to work in unionised workplaces compared to non-precarious workers.

Despite the stability of the headline number, the longitudinal analysis revealed that 8% of UK workers are in a group defined as ‘increasingly precarious’, which means that they are more likely to remain in precarious work over time, rather than progressing to more secure opportunities.

‘Increasingly precarious’ workers were also clearly different from other groups: a third of them lived in three regions of England (London, North-West, and South-West), half of them worked for four industries (hospitality, retail, agriculture, and construction), and 90% stayed within the same industry over the studied period.

The report comes at a time when there are growing concerns about precarious working, including ‘gig economy’ jobs like food delivery drivers and zero hours contracts in industries such as hospitality and retail.

Dr Krisztián Pósch, lead author of the study from UCL Security & Crime Science, said: “Concerns about precarious work have been growing in the UK in recent years, which have seen the rise of the ‘gig economy’ and other forms of what we refer to as non-traditional work.

“Though we didn’t find an increase in the proportion of precarious workers relative to more stable forms of employment, the fact that 8% of UK workers are increasingly likely to get ‘trapped’ in precarious work over time should be a matter of concern.

“These people don’t move on to more secure jobs, as many people who start out in precarious work do as their career progresses. Instead, the chances of them falling into and staying in precarious work only get higher.”

The report classified UK workers, which includes around 37.2 million jobs (ONS estimate for March 2024), into five groups according to factors such as income, age, and type of work:

• Traditional workers (49% of workforce), such as those on permanent contracts with steady salaries, were highly unlikely to fall into precarious work.
• Transitional workers (25%), such as people with caring responsibilities, were those who came in and out of precarious work.

• Early career workers (10%), such as school leavers or recent university graduates, were younger and likely to find better paid, more secure employment over time.
• Non-traditional workers (8%) were those in gig economy or self-employed roles, who were also likely to progress to less precarious and more traditional work over time.
• Increasingly precarious workers (8%) were those who became more and more likely to enter and remain in precarious labour over time.

The authors also looked at the legislative landscape around labour in the UK, which they concluded is complex, fragmented and patchy in terms of state enforcement of workers’ rights. They found that insufficient funding for and the narrow scope of state enforcement agencies meant workers are often responsible for exercising their own rights via the employment tribunal system, which can present major barriers to accessing labour justice.

Professor Virginia Mantouvalou, an author of the report from UCL Laws who specialises in human rights and labour law, said: “The legal framework for labour in the UK and its weak enforcement leave many people trapped in precarious work and vulnerable to exploitation. For precarious workers to be able to access better jobs, we need stronger protection of workers’ rights in law and in practice.”

The report lays the foundation for the UK’s biggest survey on labour market exploitation, the Working Lives Survey, which will be conducted by the same team behind this report and is due to begin gathering responses in January 2025. Survey data will be complemented by qualitative data to understand workers’ experiences and co-create ways to help prevent labour market exploitation and respond more effectively when it does occur.

The findings come at a pivotal time, with major policy moves to improve the labour market for workers currently underway.

The Employment Rights Bill, which addresses aspects of non-traditional labour such as zero hours contracts, was introduced in the House of Commons in October 2024. The Bill includes the creation of a new Fair Work Agency (FWA), whose remit will be to enforce workers’ rights and curb labour abuse.

Dr Ella Cockbain, the project co-lead and an author of the study from UCL Security & Crime Science, said: “Perhaps the most striking finding from this initial study for me has been that for a significant proportion of the UK workforce, precarious work isn’t a fleeting phase when they are first starting out or studying. This is something that many people get stuck in for years on end, which can have far-reaching negative impacts on their quality of life and ability to make ends meet.

“This raises important questions from a policy perspective, particularly how best to support increasingly precarious workers. Having a sizeable chunk of the working population stuck in precarious jobs should not be seen as an inevitable part of a modern workforce. The key next step for us is to understand the extent of violations of labour rights experienced by precarious workers, widely thought to be a high-risk group.”

Margaret Beels, the UK’s Director of Labour Market Enforcement, who commissioned the study, said: “I’m glad to see this report published today and the progress this report has made toward revealing the precarious nature of working in the UK.

“As discussed in my strategies, I’ve always been concerned about the data gap which exists in understanding both the scale and nature of non-compliance across all working populations in the UK. This report goes some way to increasing my understanding.

“As the UK’s state labour market enforcement moves towards the Fair Work Agency this report, and the final report available next year, will provide invaluable insights as to the scale and nature of labour exploitation which will help to shape the focus of the FWA’s work.”

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