Manufacturing Has The Highest Staff Tenure In the UK

According to a new study, the manufacturing industry has the highest staff tenure of all sectors in the UK.

The ‘Employee Retention Report’ compiled by Vestd, analysed a dataset of 398,006 employees from 1,400 UK companies on LinkedIn, to assess the average median employee tenure across 14 industries.

The data revealed that employees on average remain with a company for 3.7 years in the UK.

In the manufacturing sector, this number shoots up to 5.3 years, giving us further insight into the industry’s hiring landscape.

Tenure is very consistent in manufacturing compared to other industries, with an average of 5.3 years across manufacturing SMEs, 5.2 years for large companies and 5.3 years for enterprise-level businesses. 

The only industry that comes close to manufacturing is property and construction, where employee turnover sits at an average of 4.4 years. 

The industry has seen a decrease in vacancies since Q2 2023, despite its historically high turnover rates.

This comes according to Vestd after 45% of UK manufacturers ramped up investment in well-being initiatives in the last year.

This is especially impressive when we consider that 30% of UK employees leave to join a new organisation every year, with Google Trends data highlighting 7,000 web searches for ‘letter of resignation’ in the past month alone. 

“Employee tenure is a key indicator of job satisfaction and company culture,” Says Ifty Nasir, CEO of Vestd. 

“Our findings demonstrate that, while it is natural to see movement between companies, industries like marketing, hospitality, and IT are struggling to effectively retain staff for long periods, leading to higher turnover rates and disrupted workplaces.  

“But with financial stability and wellbeing becoming a key priority for employees across all industries, offering robust packages that respond to these shifting needs has become a powerful incentive to not only retain current staff but attract new talent. 

This research should highlight to manufacturers, and all companies, the importance of investing in employee wellbeing.

While people naturally prioritise pay and company perks, they also desire to work where they feel supported, valued and understood. 

Changing jobs is an arduous, stressful task, and the fact so many are driven to do it is rooted in more than the desire for greater pay or bigger opportunities.

Workers are searching for caring and constructive working cultures, cultures which engender superior fulfilment, productivity and tenure. 

When workers are content, in addition to staying longer, they are also more productive.

Research by the University of Oxford has confirmed this, finding that workers are 13% more productive when happy. 

The investment from the UK manufacturing industry into employee wellbeing must continue, with Ifty providing advice on helpful incentives. 

“Reward-based incentives, such as employee share schemes or enterprise management incentives (EMI schemes), provide employees with a sense of ownership within their workplace, whatever their role,” he says. 

“It’s also a powerful incentive for staff to work their way up the ranks, decreasing employee turnover in the long-term while encouraging a vested interest in the success of the company.”

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