NHS unhappy-leaver benchmark.
Across NHS trusts using the same exit questionnaire, the share of leavers who left unhappy ranges from 33% to 53%. Same pay bands, same national pressures, a different experience of work.
On this page
Enter your trust’s unhappy-leaver rate, and if you have them its recommend and work-again rates; see where it sits against 10 NHS trusts. Nothing is stored.
The NHS benchmark at a glance
The median is the middle trust. The middle half is where half of the trusts sit; a quarter are lower and a quarter higher.
| Measure | Median | Middle half | Full range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Left unhappy | 44% | 42–47% | 33–53% |
| Would recommend | 69% | 65–75% | 56–81% |
| Would work there again | 67% | 63–74% | 60–77% |
How to work out your figure
An unhappy leaver is someone who says dissatisfaction – with the job, the organisation or both – was a factor in their decision to go. Everyone else left for life reasons: a move, a course, retirement, a partner’s job, an offer they were not looking for. Take the leavers who answered your exit questionnaire, count the ones who left unhappy, and divide. Use answers, not headcount: the unhappy share of people who never responded is unknown, not zero.
Read it alongside your completion rate. A low unhappy figure on a 20% response often means the dissatisfied leavers did not answer. If you do not know the figure at all, that is the more important finding.
Why the unhappy share matters more than turnover
Headline turnover mixes the departures you could not have prevented with the ones you could. The unhappy share isolates the second group – the people you recruited, trained and then lost to something inside your control. The spread between organisations in the same sector, under the same labour market, is the evidence that it can be moved. To put a cost on it, try our free employee turnover calculator.
Where the comparison comes from
Exit questionnaires completed through LastOpinion, our leaver survey, using the same core questionnaire in every organisation. An organisation is included only if at least 50 leavers completed it in the period, and a group is shown only when it holds at least 5 organisations. No organisation is named.
- NHS trusts: 10 organisations, 3,063 leavers; the latest rolling 12 months for each organisation, ending between June 2026 and September 2026.
The figures refresh as our reporting cycle adds new months, so they will move a little over time. They are a reference point, not a target.
Source: great{with}talent NHS leaver benchmark, built from LastOpinion exit questionnaires in acute, mental health and community trusts. Read the findings in Disappointed advocates, which reports an earlier dataset (December 2024 – December 2025, a different mix of NHS organisations), so its ranges differ slightly from those here.
See what your own data already knows.
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