Sick Leave: Mental Health
(asked on 19th January 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of working days lost due poor mental health in each of the last five years.
The following table shows the number of working days lost due to mental health conditions in the last five years:
Year | Number of days lost due to mental health conditions (millions) | Proportion of days lost due to mental health conditions |
2020 | 20.5 | 13.7% |
2021 | 14.8 | 9.0% |
2022 | 19.0 | 10.1% |
2023 | 18.8 | 12.4% |
2024 | 16.4 | 13.5% |
Source: Office for National Statistics.
The working day is defined as seven hours and 30 minutes.
These estimates were produced using the Labour Force Survey, which is a household survey representative of the United Kingdom labour market, and it is used to produce estimates of employment, unemployment, and economic inactivity in the UK along with many other labour market statistics. Caution should be taken when analysing total days lost for 2020 and 2021, because of the impact of furlough and other policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.