As the UK workforce evolves amidst rapid technological advancements, demographic shifts, and changing workplace norms, employers are grappling with new challenges and opportunities to support and engage their teams. ADP’s latest report, People at Work 2024: A Global Workforce View, highlights the sentiments of the UK workforce across six critical areas:
- Skills and Career Growth – Opportunity for employer investment
- Skills Confidence – Gaps persist across generations
- AI at Work – Both opportunity and uncertainty
- Mental Health and Wellbeing – Stress declines but support lags
- Diversity and Inclusion – Generational perspectives
- Flexibility at Work – A core expectation
These insights underscore the shifting expectations and challenges that both employers and employees face. As businesses prepare for 2025, several transformative trends and legislative developments are set to shape the workplace.
Looking ahead, the UK is poised for transformative change with the anticipated introduction of the Employment Rights Bill in 2025. The bill is expected to modernise work environments by addressing flexibility, family rights, equality, fair pay, and trade union freedoms.
“Transformative change is coming to the UK in 2025, with the anticipated implementation of the Employment Rights Bill set to underscore a new vision for work,” said Sirsha Haldar, General Manager for the UK and Northern Europe at ADP. “Organisations will need to proactively adapt to these changes, ensuring compliance while fostering dynamic and inclusive workplaces.”
Key Workforce Trends to Watch in 2025
As businesses adapt to both legislative and global trends, ADP has identified several critical areas for focus in 2025:
- The employee experience and well-being are ongoing business priorities: The business case for prioritising the employee experience is strong, with a positive employee experience helping to drive engagement and productivity. To enhance the experience they offer, employers will look for opportunities for personalisation, from customising tasks to speaking to employees’ unique skills and strengths to tailoring communication and recognition. Additionally, prioritising ways to help employees manage their workloads and setting realistic expectations will help employers tackle employee stress and burnout.
- Skills have emerged as a strong indicator of employee success: In today’s complex labor market, skills are quickly rising to the top of priority lists for employers. Prioritising a skills-based approach to talent can shift the focus of hiring and development from traditional qualifications, such as degrees and industry experience, to a person’s skills and abilities. As employers look to fill gaps, leaders should consider upskilling employees by introducing additional skills or reskilling employees to help them take on new roles and responsibilities as work continues to change.
- New laws are shaping how AI is developed and used in employment decisions: As AI becomes more ingrained in the technologies people use, laws around how companies use data will continue to change and expand. Depending on an organisation’s processes and technology, AI may be a part of employment decision making, which requires care and compliance with new laws and regulations. Employers should continue to monitor new legislation, comply with new laws on the development of AI systems, and use AI effectively and responsibly at work.
- Pay equity and pay transparency remain business priorities: Globally, pay equity and pay transparency continue to be important areas of focus for employers, as some localities require organisations to analyse and report pay gaps, and provide job applicants and employees with more information about pay. Employers should monitor evolving legislation and work to understand their pay data to effectively address any pay gaps and comply with pay transparency laws.
- Generative AI continues to revolutionise HR, jobs and the workforce: As generative AI tools reveal efficiencies, drive productivity and introduce new ways of getting work done, organisations are exploring how to best use the technology. The focus should be human-enhancement, not a human-replacement. To ensure this, HR and business leaders must respect and instil a balance between technology and humans in the workplace. It’s important for businesses to avoid overly complex employee training and to focus on the goals they’re looking to achieve, identifying ways in which generative AI can support those desired outcomes.
- Firms are looking to expand skills to benefit from emerging technologies: While upskilling and reskilling might not be new concepts, upskilling and reskilling to support generative AI and the solutions it creates are. As generative AI technologies make skills a business priority, employers will look to leverage their HR teams and new tools to better understand how work gets done in new ways and the skills needed to support those modes of working. In addition to technical skills development for workers, employers should consider offering them opportunities to experiment with generative AI in a safe, predefined manner to help drive innovation.
As the UK prepares for significant legislative changes and global trends continue to reshape the workforce, employers have a unique opportunity to rethink and enhance how they engage with their teams. For more insights on the trends shaping the future of work, view ADP’s full report and recommendations for practitioners.
For additional insight and resources, visit adp.com/HRTrends2025.
