14 employee retention statistics and figures to know in 2024 (UK)

Whether you’re setting employee retention and turnover KPIs, doing benchmark research, or simply investigating the current state of the job market – these are key staff retention statistics and figures you need to know as we enter 2024.

• The average employee turnover rate

• The average staff turnover rates by industry 2022 – 2023

• The average staff turnover rates by organisation size 2022 – 2023

• The cost of high staff turnover and poor retention

• How to improve employee retention and reduce staff turnover

The average employee turnover rate

• The average staff turnover rate for UK workers is currently 35%.

That’s more than one third of UK employees leaving their jobs each year – so keep this in mind when setting your own retention goals and KPIs for your organisation.

According to the CIPD, this is made up of 26.9% of employees who move to another employer, and 8% who are not working one year later due to other reasons such as study, retirement, or a career break.

The average staff turnover rates by industry 2022 – 2023

• Gallup research suggests a healthy staff turnover rate is 10%.

However, many factors including location, industry, and company size contribute to what is considered ‘good’ – so we recommend only using this as a rule of thumb.

Cendex did a data analysis of voluntary turnover rates by broad industry sector over the 12 months from July 2022 – July 2023. Here’s what they found:

• Private sector services – 8.9% turnover

• Public sector services – 14.6% turnover

• Manufacturing and production – 8.1% turnover

• Charities and NFP – 19% turnover

The CIPD also has turnover rates by industry figures, however these are for 2020 – 2021 which was during the peak of the pandemic. The CIPD report shows:

• In the UK, accommodation and food services industries have the highest employee turnover.

• In the UK, extraterritorial organisations have the lowest employee turnover.

The average staff turnover rates by organisation size 2022 – 2023

According to the same Cendex research and analysis, smaller organisations experience higher turnover than larger organisations.

• 1 – 249 employees – 18.2% turnover

• 250 – 999 employees – 15.4% turnover

• 1000+ employees – 13.6% turnover

The cost of high staff turnover and poor retention

• The average cost of turnover per employee (earning £25,000 a year or more) is £30,614. (Oxford Economics).

• Similar research reported by Centric HR, shows that the average cost to replace an employee can cost between 6-9 months’ of their salary – this includes recruitment costs, training expenses relating to the new employee, and salary.

• UK employers invest around £42 billion in employee training every year. This averages out as a spend of 1530 per employee annually. (Department for Education UK).

With these figures in mind, just imagine the expenses involved if you are constantly needing to re-hire and train due to high turnover!