Indicator
Inequalities in insecure work
Published
7 May 2024
Last updated
25 April 2025
Time to read
About 2 mins
About 2 mins
Key points
- Lower-paid workers are the most likely to be in insecure employment, with the likelihood decreasing as incomes improve. Insecure work has become less likely for middle income groups (4th to 8th deciles).
- More than a third of younger people (16–19 years old) are in insecure employment, much higher than other age groups.
- Pakistani and ‘other’ were the ethnic groups most likely to experience insecure work in 2024.
Job insecurity can cause stress, which affects health, due to its unpredictability and the feeling of powerlessness it can leave people with.
This chart shows the proportion of workers in insecure employment in 2019 and 2024 for different demographic characteristics. While the overall prevalence of insecure work has changed little over the past five years, remaining at around 10%, levels differ significantly between demographic groups:
- The proportion of workers in insecure employment is highest in London (11.7%) and lowest in Northern Ireland (8%). It changed very little in most regions between 2019 and 2024, with the largest decrease of two percentage points in Northern Ireland (10.0% to 8.0%).
- In 2024, women and men were equally likely to be in insecure employment (10.3% and 9.6% respectively).
- Insecure employment varies widely between different age groups. In 2024, more than a third of 16 to 19-year-olds (34.4%) were in insecure work, which was much higher than any other age group – an increase of 6.3 percentage points since 2019.
- The ethnic groups most likely to be in insecure work are Pakistani (20.7%), and other (18.0%). All people from minority ethnic groups are more likely to be in insecure work than white (9.0%) people. Bangladeshi and mixed or multiple ethnic groups saw the largest decreases between 2019 and 2024 of 2.9 and 2.4 percentage points respectively. Chinese people are the only group to have seen a meaningful increase in insecure employment from 5.2% to 11.4% between 2019 and 2024.
- Across the pay distribution, the proportion of workers in insecure employment is the highest for the people in the lowest pay decile (23.5%). This proportion increased by 2 percentage points between 2019 and 2024. The proportion of workers in insecure employment decreases in the next seven deciles as pay goes up. In the highest two pay deciles, the proportion of workers in insecure work increases a little to around 3% in both.
- This indicator is based on a methodology provided to the ONS by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, modified to include zero-hour contracts.
- Insecure employment is made up of four categories: individuals employed on zero-hour contracts; workers employed through an employment agency; individuals in a job that is in some way not permanent; and individuals self-employed in vulnerable sectors (caring and leisure; process, plant and machine operatives; elementary occupations).
- The sum of all the categories does not equal the total number of people in insecure work, because some individuals belong to more than one category at once.
- Figures are based on averages of Q2 and Q4 data.
Source: Office for National Statistics, Quarterly Labour Force Survey, UK, 2019 and 2024
