thrive at work/Employee burnout statistics 2026

Data hub · Updated quarterly

Employee burnout statistics 2026.

Q: How much does burnout cost employers?

Burnout cost is dominated by turnover, lost productivity (presenteeism) and absenteeism. Replacing an employee is commonly estimated at one-half to two times their annual salary, and burned-out employees are far more likely to leave and to be less productive while they stay. For most organizations the combined annual cost runs into the millions.

Q: Can engagement be high while burnout rises?

Yes. Engagement and burnout measure different things — commitment versus depletion — so they can rise together. A meaningful share of the most engaged employees also sit in the highest burnout-risk band. Engagement surveys cannot see this because they do not measure capacity: sleep, recovery, cognitive load and physical energy.

A curated, sourced reading of where workplace burnout stands in 2026 — prevalence, cost, causes, and the paradox underneath it. Every figure is cited and dated. Where ranges differ by study, we say so.

Last reviewed June 2026

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91%

of UK adults experienced high or extreme pressure or stress in the past year

Mental Health UK, 2026

~40%

of employees worldwide report a lot of daily stress — still above pre-pandemic levels

Gallup, 2026

0.5–2×

of annual salary to replace one departing employee

SHRM

up to 37%

of eNPS variance explained by capacity beyond engagement

Thrive, n=10,000+

Which employee assessment tools predict burnout and staff turnover?

No assessment predicts burnout or turnover with certainty; the useful ones show early signals. thrive at work shows them by measuring energy, recovery, focus and resilience next to engagement, and flags groups that are Burning out or Depleted. How to measure capacity and burnout risk.

How common is burnout?

Burnout rose sharply in the early 2020s and has stayed high through 2025–26. Exact percentages depend on how each study defines and measures it, so treat these as directional — the consistent story is that stress and burnout have not meaningfully receded.

91%

of UK adults experienced high or extreme levels of pressure or stress at some point in the past year; one in three felt it ‘always’ or ‘often’.Mental Health UK — Burnout Report 2026

~40%

of the world’s employees reported experiencing a lot of stress the previous day — still above pre-pandemic levels in Gallup’s tracking.Gallup — State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report

1 in 5

UK workers needed time off in the past year due to poor mental health caused by stress — a figure that has held stubbornly constant.Mental Health UK — Burnout Report 2026

46–58%

burnout among physicians in multi-year samples — prevalence is consistently highest in healthcare, public-sector and frontline roles.Healthcare worker studies, 2025–26; McKinsey Health Institute

25–34

is now the age group most likely to report high or extreme stress (96%), with 18–24-year-olds the most likely to take time off (39%) — a widening generational divide.Mental Health UK — Burnout Report 2026

What burnout costs.

The cost concentrates in three places: people leaving, people under-performing while they stay, and people being absent. The single biggest driver is turnover.

$8.8tn

is Gallup's flagship estimate of the annual cost of low engagement to the global economy — about 9% of global GDP — much of it driven by burnout-related disengagement.Gallup estimate

0.5–2×

annual salary is the commonly cited cost to replace an employee, covering recruiting, onboarding, lost output during the vacancy and ramp to full productivity.SHRM

More likely

to leave: burned-out employees are substantially more likely to be actively job-hunting than their peers, making burnout a leading driver of voluntary attrition.Gallup, 2026

Presenteeism

— reduced output from employees who stay but are depleted — is widely estimated to cost more in aggregate than absenteeism itself.WHO / occupational-health literature

Estimate it for your organization

Our cost-of-burnout calculator turns these ranges into a figure for your own headcount, salary and sector — with every assumption shown.

What drives it.

Burnout is a response to chronic workplace conditions, not a personal failing. The research consistently points to the same structural drivers.

Workload

Unsustainable workload and time pressure are the most consistently cited drivers — the gap between demands and the time and energy to meet them.Maslach & Leiter; Gallup

Control

Low autonomy, unclear expectations and unfair treatment compound exhaustion into full burnout.Maslach Burnout Inventory framework

Manager

Manager quality is one of the strongest moderators of team burnout — for better or worse, managers account for a large share of the variance in team engagement.Gallup, 2026

Recovery

Insufficient rest and recovery — poor sleep, no downtime — is both a cause and an early physiological signal of burnout risk.Occupational-health literature; thrive at work

The engagement paradox.

The most counter-intuitive finding in the data: engagement and burnout have risen together. Committed employees are not protected from burnout — often they are the most exposed.

Both rise

Self-reported engagement and burnout have moved together over the past decade — they are not opposites. Global engagement sits at just 20%, yet stress remains near record highs.Gallup — State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report

Engaged &
exhausted

A meaningful share of the most engaged employees also score in the highest burnout-risk band — the "engaged but exhausted" profile.Occupational-psychology research, incl. HEC-Paris-affiliated work

Read the analysis

We unpack why engagement and burnout move together — and what it means for measurement — in Engagement is high, burnout is rising.

What capacity adds.

The gap in the data is capacity — the physiological and cognitive headroom an engagement survey never measures. This is where our own validation study (n=10,000+) contributes new evidence.

up to 37%

of eNPS variance is explained by capacity beyond what engagement captures — the signal an engagement-only tool can't recover.thrive at work — validation study, n=10,000+, 2026

up to 10
points

is how far engagement runs ahead of capacity in every market measured — the structural gap that precedes burnout.thrive at work — validation study, n=10,000+, 2026

74% → 8%

Burnout risk falls from 74% of workers at the lowest Thrive Index scores to 8% at the highest — capacity is a measurable, movable lever.thrive at work — within-instrument validation, 2026

The mechanism

Why these numbers keep rising while engagement scores do too: employee burnout and the engagement–burnout paradox.

Method & sources.

This page curates published workforce statistics alongside thrive at work's own validation data. External figures are summarized directionally — we cite the source and year and avoid inventing precise percentages where studies disagree. Figures attributed to thrive at work come from our validation study (n=10,000+, 2025–26) and are clearly labelled as such.

We review this page quarterly and update figures as new editions of the underlying reports are published. Last reviewed June 2026.

Gallup — State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report (published April 2026, data collected 2025). Engagement (20% globally), daily stress (40%) and wellbeing (34% thriving). The ~$8.8tn / ~9%-of-GDP cost of low engagement is Gallup's flagship estimate from the report narrative.
Mental Health UK — Burnout Report 2026 (fieldwork November 2025, 4,502 UK adults). High/extreme stress prevalence, time off, and the generational divide.
SHRM — Cost of replacing an employee. Replacement cost commonly estimated at one-half to two times annual salary.
McKinsey Health Institute, 2023–25. Cross-market burnout and distress prevalence by sector.
Maslach & Leiter — Areas of Worklife / Maslach Burnout Inventory. The established framework for burnout's structural causes.
Occupational-psychology research on “engaged but exhausted” profiles (including HEC-Paris-affiliated work).
thrive at work — validation study, n=10,000+, 2025–26. Capacity's unique explained variance and the capacity gap.

Common questions

What percentage of employees are burned out in 2026?

Across large studies, stress and burnout remain near record highs. In the UK, 91% of adults reported high or extreme pressure or stress in the past year and one in five took time off for it (Mental Health UK, 2026); globally, around 40% report a lot of daily stress and engagement sits at just 20% (Gallup, 2026). Prevalence is highest in healthcare, public-sector and frontline roles.

How much does burnout cost employers?

It's dominated by turnover, presenteeism and absenteeism. Replacing an employee is commonly estimated at one-half to two times salary, and burned-out staff are more likely to leave and less productive while they stay. For most organizations the annual total runs into the millions — estimate yours with our calculator, or see the cost of disengagement.

Can engagement be high while burnout rises?

Yes — they measure different things (commitment versus depletion) and have risen together for a decade. A meaningful share of the most engaged employees also sit in the highest burnout-risk band. Engagement surveys miss it because they don't measure capacity: sleep, recovery, cognitive load and energy.

Measure the signal behind the statistics.

Burnout statistics describe the problem. Thrive measures it in your own workforce — capacity and engagement, per team, before the cost lands. Book a demo to see how.

Book a demo →See the evidence base →