Publication  -  Summer 2025

The Good Work Time Series

ForewordKey insightsMethodologySummary AnalysesEnglandScotlandWalesLondon

Good Work builds resilience against socioeconomic and health shocks, and builds resilience for technological transformation. More than any other single factor, access to good jobs will determine prospects for people and places across the country.

As evidenced by IFOW’s Pissarides Review into the Future of Work and Wellbeing, technological transformation is having profound impacts on the creation, nature and distribution of good work. The Pissarides Review also found that good quality work mediates better outcomes from AI and automation, and that indicators of good work can serve as measures and proxies for well-functioning local innovation ecosystems and inclusive growth. To understand the progress of these impacts, levels of good work across the regions and nations of Great Britain must be measured.

This is what the Good Work Monitor sets out to do. It tracks trends in access to good work across local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales, analysing the most recent available data (until 2024) on six dimensions of good work: employment, economic activity, the share of professional jobs, deroutinisation of occupations, satisfactory working hours, and pay.
Due to a lack of data availability, Northern Ireland is not included in the Good Work Monitor at this stage.

Reflecting the growing importance of productivity across this Government’s missions, this edition also includes a productivity analysis, using the most current available data.

Combined with data from IFOW’s Disruption Index, which tracked technological transformation across England from 2016 – 2022, this unique view over time is designed to help policymakers identify the most effective ways to improve economic, technological, social and health outcomes together, and tailor policy to local challenges.

The data in this edition of the Good Work Monitor shows that the trends and trajectories identified in 2023, and flagged again in 2024, are becoming even more entrenched. Differences between top and bottom performers and between local areas are becoming even more pronounced.

This 2025 release highlights continuing and significant disparities in labour market outcomes across the nations, regions and local authorities in England, Scotland, and Wales. The particularly pronounced differences in London necessitate a separate analysis of the capital, both in terms of its aggregate position compared to other regions, but also in terms of the depth of the differences which exist between London boroughs.

Since our analysis began with data in 2009, aggregate scores have seen a generally positive trend. Recovery after the turbulence of austerity was seen after 2014, with stronger evidence of this in the South of England, and a more volatile picture in the North, in Scotland and in Wales. There was a significant decline in Good Work Total Scores in 2021, the year most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Increased polarisation has characterised subsequent years, with working conditions improving markedly in top-performing regions, while inequalities with low-performing regions have widened.

However, contrary to popular narratives, a positive interaction remains between levels of employment and measures of median pay. This should offer reassurance as the Employment Rights Bill progresses through Parliament. Affirmed by new work which has tracked the positive impact of enhanced employment rights on key economic indicators, improvements in pay and conditions can be supported, without the fear that they will lead to fewer jobs.

Similarly, the many positive interactions between the six dimensions analysed in this Good Work Monitor should reinforce the case for a new social and economic paradigm of good work. Many components of the Good Work Monitor are still interacting positively, despite a drop in median pay. This offers fresh impetus to the Government’s Industrial Strategy to ensure the creation and protection of good work is a policy priority across different tiers of government, as well as across stages of the technology lifecycle.

The findings from IFOW’s Pissarides Review support this and offer a comprehensive and practical set of recommendations for how a new model of human-centred automation can be rolled out. The model it proposes would see a renewal of our regional innovation ecosystem, research and development investment and an embedded process of technology adoption that enhances access to good work.

Our research invites a bolder approach to steering responsible innovation; an approach which is nuanced and tailored to local challenges and opportunities, and builds the infrastructure and institutions needed to secure access to and availability of good work across the country.

A sharper focus on creating and sustaining good work remains the most effective means of tackling our most pressing challenges and embracing the opportunities of the new technological revolution.

We would like to thank the IFOW team and offer particular thanks to our Research Fellow Dr Elena Papaganniaki of Edinburgh Napier University, and to Kester Brewin.

Anna Thomas MBE, Founding Director and Co-Director, Institute for the Future of Work
Dr Abigail Gilbert, Co-Director, Institute for the Future of Work


Chapter

Key insights

1

Access to good work is central not only to the prosperity and wellbeing of individuals, communities and the country, but to meeting the toughest socioeconomic challenges. [1] It confers protection for people and communities against health, social and economic shocks and enables workers to adapt to the technological transformation brought about by AI and automation.

According to the latest ONS figures from April 2025, overall levels of employment in the UK remain relatively stable. [2] However, good work is more than just employment. It is work that promotes dignity, autonomy and equality; work that has fair pay and conditions; work where people are properly supported to develop their talents and have a sense of community. [3]

In 2021, the Institute for the Future of Work published the Good Work Monitor, which showed that people and places with access to good work fared best through the period of Covid-19. By contrast, communities with less access to good work experienced the sharpest end of the pandemic, with inequalities of work and health deepening. It found that a lack of good work strongly correlated with deaths and diseases of despair before the pandemic, and with Covid-19 mortality rates.

This insight motivated IFOW’s work to produce an ongoing Good Work Monitor Time Series, tracking and analysing trends in the dimensions of good work across 203 local authorities. It now stretches to data over 16 years (2009 - 2024), exploring trends by nation and highlighting regions that are showing particularly strong or weak performance across the dimensions of good work.

With our Final Report of the Pissarides Review published in January 2025, IFOW research is now also able to point to the wider drivers, enablers and relationships that are contributing to the technological transformation that is having effects on job quality. Most importantly, our Disruption Index examines by region the interactions between technological transformation and good work to support tailored policy responses across both technology and job life cycles.

The Good Work Monitor is not a competitive analysis. Local authorities have different starting points and trajectories, making direct comparison unhelpful. While rankings have been generated from the data, the principal aim here is to inform policymakers working to bridge inequalities. Local authorities should not be thought to be competing in terms of score; rather, each should think about how best to achieve progression, especially those which fall under the same political control. Part of this non-competitive policy solution could be the convening of groups of local authorities to aggregate better data, and to coordinate on shared concerns and policy issues.

The interactive story-map below charts Good Work Total Scores from 2009 to 2024.

Key insights

  1. 1. Geographic inequalities between nations and within regions are widening, but this is not inevitable.

    London demonstrates marked inequalities across several measures. There is a very high share of professional jobs, and higher than average median weekly pay, but low satisfactory hours scores suggest that intensification remains a problem. The capital exerts a strong gravity on the regions that surround it. Spillover appears limited across England and Wales, with the exception of some stronger activity across Greater Manchester. Scotland fares better, appearing more insulated from these effects. While persistent, the fact that these inequalities are not set in stone should give encouragement to the aspirations of the new Industrial Strategy, which emphasises support for enhancing growth outside of London.
  1. 2. Technology adoption is having a divergent impact, with risks that the polarising labour market impact of the Covid-19 pandemic could be prolonged, rather than alleviated, by AI.

    The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic saw economic activity and employment experiencing significant downturns during 2020. Recovery from this began in 2022, but different regions’ capacity to do so has been polarised, meaning that it has been concentrated in already high-performing areas. The economic impact of the pandemic is still affecting some areas, exacerbating pre-existing labour market inequalities rather than creating opportunities for more balanced national development. The acceleration of technology adoption in this period has appeared to have had a divergent effect, with regions of strong technological transformation able to recover quickly, while those without are further weakened.
  2. 3. Challenges related to levels of pay continue to persist.

    Since the the Time Series began in 2009, data shows that pay levels across England, Scotland and Wales have remained relatively low when adjusted for inflation and housing costs, with only London, the South, and parts of Scotland showing consistently higher wages. The picture became more stark in 2022, with particularly low pay levels further exacerbated by inflation that hit real wages. This financial strain for workers in many regions inhibits economic mobility, creating drag on efforts to increase access to and the availability of good work. The Industrial Strategy makes an explicit connection between ‘creating good jobs and higher incomes’ [4] and it is important that the pay dimension is affirmed in the context of technology adoption being seen as a way of enhancing productivity, but with associated risks of detriment to job quality and wages.
  1. 4. The relationship between pay and satisfactory hours remains negative in London, although weaker relationships elsewhere suggest this outcome is not inevitable.

    Across London boroughs, high levels of Median Weekly Pay are associated with compromises in Satisfactory Working Hours. This can be seen as a measure of increasing work intensification, which can be understood as a potential erosion in quality of life. When crosscut with data from IFOW’s Disruption Index, there is evidence of a potential interaction with increasing technological transformation and increasing work intensification, a connection that should concern policymakers. Data from Scotland, however, shows a far weaker relationship between pay and satisfactory hours, showing that the link is not inevitable and different policies and approaches to technology adoption can promote different outcomes.
  2. 5. A sustained focus on creation and access to good work across the country is needed to break cycles of stagnation.

    Since our Good Work Monitor Time Series data began in 2009, productivity levels across the UK have remained stagnant. The only areas that have shown increased productivity since 2018 are those surrounding London, with these changes becoming more pronounced after 2020. This points to a highly polarised picture of productivity, one with similar patterns to the distribution of professional jobs, suggesting that deep and structural issues exist around how economic value is created and distributed.

    Data from our Disruption Index shows clearly that innovation spillover from the ‘golden triangle’ around the South East is limited. This contrasts with the working assumption of the Industrial Strategy, which celebrates ‘the rise of superstar firms, whose success spills over to the wider economy.’ [5] If spillover is to move from aspiration into measurable effects, bolder interventions and pilots to rebalance the types, targets and flow of R&D and investment across regions and nations will be needed.

Key recommendations

  1. 1. With good work at the heart of the new Industrial Strategy, better measurement of it – and productivity and technological transformation – should be a key priority.

    Both the Good Work Monitor and the Disruption Index should be developed and refined as a basis for consistent, evidence-based action to address good work and technological transformation. This will require better and more consistent data to be collected and shared, and then used as a consistent and coherent basis for intervention.

    The Pissarides Review found that the approaches that firms make to technology adoption have an impact on job quality and skills. It also affirmed work done elsewhere that the adoption of new technologies does not automatically give rise to productivity gains or better jobs. It is vital that data is collected to track good work across the six dimensions used here – but that this is also matched by data on technological transformation and productivity in each region.

    This will require investment in local public data infrastructure, and support the development of region-specific ‘Good Work Monitors’ and ‘Disruption Index Spotlights’, enabling more responsive policy design.
  1. 2. Data relevant to the creation, distribution and access to good work should be used to drive priorities for equitable and sustainable regional investment and development.

    We are encouraged to see support in the Industrial Strategy for a more sustained focus on improving access to good work, and that the Strategy advocates strongly for regional investment and development. However, it is important that priority areas are identified carefully and that investment priorities are driven by data, and that outcomes are monitored.

    For example, a large investment in green technology in one of the IS-8 regions should be reflected in better jobs in the region, rather than just on spending on flying in expert skills from other regions or countries, without associated uplift in long-term levels of good work.

    This approach should coordinate central and local government efforts to build sustainable economic ecosystems in underperforming regions.
  1. 3. ‘Growth’ should be recentred on human capabilities and the creation of new, good jobs, rather than focusing primarily on technological capabilities.

    At all levels of government, human values, agency and autonomy should be central to thinking about the drive for growth. Improving productivity figures and levels of technology adoption should not be uncoupled from measures of good work. If innovation and social good are to advance together – and communities flourish as firms adopt new technologies – agencies such as DSIT, DWP, Skills England and the AI Opportunities Unit must recognise the importance of investing in human capabilities in each region, rather than solely on levels of investment in AI and automation.

    This balanced focus could be achieved through investment and development in a long-term Future of Work Programme and the creation of dedicated Future of Work units and roles at across national, local and regional levels, allowing better pipelining of human-centred policy and innovation across the UK.
  1. 4. To support this approach, a Skills and Capabilities Transition Program should – in England - be coordinated by Skills England and developed in close partnership with regional authorities. This should learn from the work done by Skills Development Scotland, and inform parallel work in Wales.

    The recent publication ‘Skills for growth and opportunity’, where Skills England set out their sector evidence on the growth and skills offer, emphasised demographic inequalities as a priority focus for action. While we agree that demographic inequalities are important to overcome, findings from our Pissarides Review highlight that the ‘capabilities’ of a place are a governing factor with a significant influence on the extent to which demographic inequalities can be narrowed.

    For this reason, we recommend that funding for high-quality training programs to better equip workers for professional and de-routinised jobs is focused on areas where access to good work is more sparse. Coordination for localised skills pipelines should be headed, in England, by Skills England, but regional authorities should be close partners to ensure that training and apprenticeships are carefully targeted to improve access to good work, and are informed by priorities highlighted by the Industrial Strategy.

    Scotland’s stronger performance should be learned from, and Wales should use the impetus of the Industrial Strategy to build a more coherent skills and capabilities offer.
  1. 5. Support and interventions to target improving productivity should be created, focusing on improving innovation spillover from the ‘golden triangle’ to benefit the whole of the UK.

    While the Industrial Strategy focuses on the influence of ‘superstar’ firms to trigger spillover effects, work from the Pissarides Review suggests that SMEs – upon which such a vital proportion of economic activity in regions is based – are a key site for action.

    To address polarisation of productivity as new AI and automation tools are adopted, policies should address venture capital and R&D flows into regional innovation systems. Consideration should be given to technology adoption subsidies, management training programs, and knowledge-sharing networks connecting SMEs with higher education institutions.

    Measurement issues in productivity should also be acknowledged and addressed to ensure accurate tracking of progress.
[1] The Good Work Monitor, Institute for the Future Of Work (2021)
[2] ONS Study - Employment in the UK: April 2025
[3] The Good Work Charter, Institute for the Future of Work (2018)
[4] The UK"s Modern Industrial Strategy, p. 18, gov.uk (2025) 
[5] The UK"s Modern Industrial Strategy, p. 18, gov.uk (2025) 
Chapter

The Time Series methodology

2


Methodology

Stage one

The Good Work Monitor offers the first holistic measure of the availability of good work in each local authority area of England, Scotland and Wales. The monitor combines data on three domains: ‘labour market access’, ‘status and autonomy’ and ‘pay and conditions’. The Good Work Time Series analyses access to Good Work in local authorities across the United Kingdom over the decade from 2009 to 2023. 

The Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW) defines Good Work through ten principles set out in the Good Work Charter. The principles of the Charter aim to encourage a ‘high road’ approach which exceeds legal compliance. But the Charter also synthesises relevant national and international legal requirements and standards pertaining to Good Work.

What gets measured is what gets valued, and tends to be where action is oriented. Good Work indicators were selected following a review of relevant academic and policy literature, and subject to data quality and availability at an upper tier local authority level. Objective measures, which reflect real-world choices and outcomes, were preferred to capture persistent trends within local areas at an aggregate level. IFOW has worked with researchers to rigorously select, assess and compile the data that underpins the monitor. 

Data were collected for 203 unitary authorities and counties across England, Scotland and Wales for the decade 2009-2024. It was decided this geographic level provides the best balance of data availability and geographic specificity. London has been analysed as a separate entity due to its relative size and impact.

Due to a lack of data availability, Northern Ireland is not included in the monitor at this stage. Due to non-reporting of data to the ONS on Routine work and Professional Share, the following boroughs were not included in calculations for 2022: West Devon, Harlow, Maldon, Rushmoor, Tees Valley, Three Rivers, Welwyn Hatfield, Sevenoaks, Boston, Craven, Adur, Horsham, Burnley, Epson and Ewell, Runnymede, Surrey Heath, Waverley, Woking, Derbyshire Dales, North East Derbyshire, and Shetland Islands.

The Good Work Time Series enables a detailed look at changing relationships between different aspects of work quality and analysis of the drivers of transition by community. The methodology used for Stage 1 of building the Good Work Monitor is described here.

Table 1 – Good Work Monitor and subcomponents

Stage two

On completion of Stage one, the raw data for all six of the Good Work Monitor domains used in the Time Series for the years 2009-23 was standardised (mean=0 and variance=1).

In this report, we highlight key findings including ranking, grouping and shared features of local authority transitions over time. We decompose Good Work indicators to examine drivers, weaknesses and strengths for each community, and offer an overview of trends for local authorities within England, Scotland, Wales and London. 

A visualisation of how the different regions (with London taken as a separate region) perform over time across the different Good Work indicators is below.

A plot of how each dimension of the six dimensions of the index have trended over time is below.

Productivity

For measuring productivity, we use data on Gross Value Added (GVA) per hour, and these data extend up to 2022.  

Productivity indicators face a number of issues in terms of measurement. For this analysis, we used Current Price (smoothed) GVA (B) per hour worked (£) for each Local Authority District, 2004 – 2022.

The ONS uses three approaches to measure GDP: the output approach, the income approach, and the expenditure approach. Each can also be used to estimate GVA, but may yield slightly different results due to the nature of the data sources and specific methodologies.

GVA(B) is calculated by balancing these approaches in the regional accounts to ensure that they align and provide a consistent and harmonised view of economic activity across different regions and sectors. This means that the income approach taken partially into account will display correlation with data on Pay. For this reason, there is a need to acknowledge potential double-counting.

Additionally, in a Local Authority analysis, different authorities have different inflation levels. For this reason, measuring GVA in current prices without employing a local authority or regional deflator may show areas like London – where prices are higher - as highly productive.

Another issue in productivity measures is that the aggregate data do not distinguish between labour productivity (same human energy expenditure with higher output) with labour intensification (higher human energy expenditure with higher output).

A plot of how each dimension of the six dimensions of the index - plus productivity - have trended over time (up to the latest productivity data in 2022) is shown below.

Given the wealth of information within the Time Series, this commentary only reflects our own initial analyses. We encourage policymakers to use the interactive data visualisations to explore Good Work trends in greater depth for a more nuanced understanding of local dynamics and challenges.

IFOW will refine the Good Work Times Series as additional data becomes available.

Chapter

Summary Analyses

3

The 2024 Good Work Time Series reveals the nature and extent of disparities in access to Good Work across time and place, in spite of an overall improvement in scores over the decade.

The picture across Britain

We begin our analyses by looking at the picture across Britain, first by total score across the six dimensions of Good Work, and then by individual dimension.

Total Scores

Total Scores - separated by Region and Local Authority

Economic Activity

Employment

Pay

Satisfactory Hours

Professional Share

De-Routinisation

Productivity (up to 2022)

National and Regional Comparisons

We now move to comparisons of how the different dimensions of Good Work have changed over time for different nations, with London taken as a separate region, firstly as spider graphs, then as time series for each dimension.

Spider Graphs

Economic Activity

Employment

Pay

Satisfactory Hours

Professional Share

De-Routinisation

Productivity (up to 2022)

Dynamic interactions and synergies

Here we present how different dimensions of Good Work are seen to be interacting over time, across different Local Authorities in England, Wales and Scotland.

Professional Share and De-Routinisation

Median Pay and Employment

Productivity and Pay

Productivity and Satisfactory Hours

Productivity and Professional Share

We now turn to analyses at the national level, with London taken as a separate region.

Chapter

England

4

England’s Top Performing local authorities are here. Areas for improvement and peer learning are discussed below.

Top 10 Rest of England Race Chart 2009-2024

‍England’s bottom performing local authorities, most in need of support to improve access to Good Work are here:

Bottom 10 Rest of England Race Chart 2009-2024

Decomposed scores across England 2009-2024

A steady increase in overall Good Work scores over the decade masks differences revealed by a detailed decomposition of Good Work domains at a local authority level. The Good Work Times Series points to higher levels of variation in profile composition between local authorities within a region than between regions, even where areas are neighbouring.

Professional share is the only component of the monitor which increases steadily over time, consistent with transition from manufacturing to a services economy, combined with the growth of public sector professional jobs in health care and education. This highlights professional share as a vehicle for increasing median pay, borne out at each level of analysis.

However, deroutinisation does not progress in tandem with the professional share through the pandemic, suggesting that structural transformation of the economy is unlikely to create good jobs or better work per se. Devolution agreements and Trailblazer Deals have allowed Combined Authorities to pursue improvement in some, but not all, dimensions of the Good Work Monitor.

Animated charts showing the synergies between Professional Share and Median Pay and Median Pay and Employment in England are shown below.

ENGLAND - Professional Share and Median Pay

ENGLAND - Median Pay and Employment

Chapter

Scotland

5

The Time Series highlights the strong performance of Scotland, which boasts a history of cross-department focus on quality work, including the Fair Work Framework, Fair Work First procurement pledge and Healthy Working Lives initiative from Public Health Scotland. These initiatives communicate both immediate and wider advantages of good work, including the improvement of health and wellbeing beyond working age adults to their families and communities.

Contrasting with England, Wales and London, Scotland exhibits positive synergies not only between pay and employment but also between pay and working hours. This synergy serves as a potential model for other areas to emulate. This demonstrates that the negative relationships observed elsewhere here are not inevitable and offers a benchmark for policymakers.

The ranking of local authorities in Scotland are below.

SCOTLAND Race Chart 2009-2024

SCOTLAND Decomposed Scores 2009-2024

Data from Scotland shows that a trade-off between Median Weekly Pay and Satisfactory Hours is not inevitable, as it appears to be in other nations. 

SCOTLAND - Median Weekly Pay and Satisfactory Hours

Chapter

Wales

6

Wales has consistently underperformed in most dimensions of the Good Work Monitor, highlighting patterns that have become entrenched over time and the lack of mobility in access to Good Work. However, with a major focus for investment in the newly published Industrial Strategy, the coming years are a moment of opportunity to make significant strides across each of the six good work dimensions, and in productivity too.

The Good Work Monitor Time Series shows that policies should target employment and work quality together in Wales, aiming at the creation of good jobs, not any jobs, to address the range of intersectional inequalities growing in Wales. Examination of the detailed, rather than aggregate data, demonstrates a positive relationship between employment and pay in particular. Professional share is very low, and deroutinisation of jobs is only half that of London, suggesting Wales would benefit most from policies directed at increasing professional jobs to boost low median pay, alongside policies directed at ‘raising the floor.’

The ranking of local authorities in Wales is below.

Wales Race Chart 2009-2024

Wales Decomposed Scores 2009-2024

The relationship between de-routinisation and median pay in Wales is shown below.

WALES - De-Routinisation and Median Pay

While London has traditionally been noted as the consistent outlier in terms of de-routinisation, in 2024, Wales emerges as the leader among the three countries—England, Scotland, and Wales—demonstrating its positive potential.

Chapter

London

7

The Capital’s strong performance is driven by the high professional share and median pay. Consistently high scores in these areas across the Good Work Time Series obscure the extent of variation between neighbouring local authorities, which is more extreme than any other group. 

There is one exception to the positive synergies between the dimensions of Good Work, and this is seen most sharply in London: satisfactory hours has a negative relationship with median pay and drops dramatically as the latter increases. Similarly, satisfactory hours are experienced as a cost for more autonomy at work.  

Taken together, our findings reminds policymakers that professional jobs, while a vehicle for increasing pay, are no silver bullet. Interventions and policies aimed at increasing access to Good Work along all dimensions will be required.

London Race Chart 2009-2024

London Decomposed Scores 2009-2024

A chart showing the synergy between median pay and satisfactory hours in London is below:

LONDON – Satisfactory Hours and Median Pay

LONDON – Professional Share and Satisfactory Hours

LONDON – Professional Share and Median Pay