Why people leave: a year of UK exit data.
Turnover figures tell you how many people went, not why, or whether you could have kept them. Here is what 6,152 leavers told us over the last year, across three sectors.
On this page
- About half of leavers go unhappy, and the spread is the real story
- Career and growth are at or near the top everywhere
- Pay matters – but not equally
- Well-being weighs more outside the private sector
- Between a third and two in five leave within two years
- What would have kept them
- What to do with this
- The figures at a glance
Career and growth are at or near the top in every sector; pay matters far more in some sectors than others.
The data comes from LastOpinion, our exit questionnaire, completed by leavers at 30 organisations: 13 in the private sector, 7 in the public sector, education and not-for-profit, and 10 NHS trusts. Each organisation contributes its latest twelve months, and only organisations with at least fifty completed questionnaires are included. No organisation is named. We use the same core questionnaire in every organisation, so every leaver answers the same core questions and the comparisons are like for like.
About half of leavers go unhappy, and the spread is the real story
We separate leavers into two groups. Some leave for life reasons – a move, a course, retirement, an offer they were not looking for – and speak warmly of the organisation on the way out. The rest leave with dissatisfaction, with the job, the organisation or both, as a factor. That second group is the turnover you could have prevented.
In the typical private-sector organisation in our data, 52% of leavers fall into the unhappy group. The figure is 51% in the public and not-for-profit sector and 44% across NHS trusts. But the medians hide the more useful finding: the range inside each sector. Among private-sector organisations, the middle half sit between 48% and 59%, and the full range runs from 15% to 67%. Organisations in the same sector, recruiting from the same labour market, lose very different shares of their people to avoidable dissatisfaction. In our experience, most of that difference comes down to local management, which means it can be moved.
Career and growth are at or near the top everywhere
Each leaver rates fourteen possible reasons for going. Across all three sectors, the same two sit at or near the top: career progression and personal growth. In the private sector, 49% of leavers said career progression was a major or contributing reason; in the NHS, 42%; in the public and not-for-profit sector, 41%. People do not leave because they stopped wanting to grow. They leave because they could not see how to grow where they were.
| Reason for leaving | Private | Public & NFP | NHS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Career progression | 49% | 41% | 42% |
| Personal growth | 46% | 40% | 42% |
| Reward and recognition | 45% | 37% | 26% |
| Teamwork and cooperation | 40% | 42% | 39% |
| Job satisfaction | 38% | 34% | 28% |
| Confidence in the organisation | 34% | 40% | 30% |
| Loyalty and trust | 33% | 36% | 31% |
| Well-being | 29% | 41% | 40% |
| Communications | 28% | 33% | 26% |
| Relationship with line manager | 26% | 32% | 29% |
| Belonging | 23% | 25% | 19% |
| Independence | 16% | 17% | 20% |
| Working conditions | 16% | 21% | 28% |
| Ethical standards | 16% | 20% | 22% |
Share of all leavers citing each reason as a major or contributing factor. Leavers can cite more than one.
Pay matters – but not equally
Reward and recognition is the third most-cited reason in the private sector (45% of all private-sector leavers; in the typical private-sector organisation, 42%) and the tenth most-cited in the NHS (26%). The destination data says the same thing from the other side: 77% of private-sector leavers who were moving to another employer were going to higher pay, against 51% of those leaving NHS trusts and 59% in the public and not-for-profit sector. One large private-sector employer accounts for about a third of that sector’s leavers, so read the private-sector pooled figures as indicative; the gap with the NHS holds either way.
The practical conclusion is uncomfortable for anyone who reaches for a pay review first. Where pay is a genuine competitor, it needs attention – but even there it sits behind career progression and personal growth. Where pay is set nationally, it sits much further down the list, and a retention plan built around it is aimed at the wrong target.
Well-being weighs more outside the private sector
In the public and not-for-profit sector, teamwork and cooperation (42%), career progression (41%) and well-being (41%) sit almost level at the top. In the NHS, well-being is cited by 40% of leavers. In the private sector the figure is 29%. Our reading: where pay is largely fixed, how people are supported carries more of the weight, and in the public and not-for-profit sector so does how well teams hold together.
Between a third and two in five leave within two years
Between 33% and 40% of leavers in each sector had been with the organisation for less than two years. Every one of them was recruited, inducted and trained, then lost before the investment paid back. Early leaving is an onboarding and line-management question as much as a retention one, and it is measurable within the first three months.
What would have kept them
For every reason a leaver says mattered, they also choose the change that would have made the most difference. For career progression in the private sector, the most-chosen actions were: “a process to fast track my progression”, “feedback on my prospects of promotion” and “explain the promotion process & standards needed”. For teamwork in the public and not-for-profit sector: “create shared team goals”, “regular meetings with other teams” and “weekly team meetings to stay connected”. Most of these are management habits – explaining, giving feedback, involving – rather than budget lines. Explore every reason and sector in What would have kept them?
What to do with this
Find your own unhappy share
Headline turnover mixes avoidable and unavoidable loss. The unhappy share isolates the part you can manage. Compare it with your sector in the unhappy-leaver benchmark check.
Make progression visible
The most-requested actions are about how progression works: a clear process, honest feedback on prospects, and an explanation of the standards needed. A clear, published route and a regular career conversation cost little. The manager’s guide to career conversations is a place to start.
Look inside, not just across
The spread between organisations in the same sector usually repeats between teams inside one organisation. Break your exit data down by team and manager before deciding what to change.
Ask before they go
Exit data tells you what you lost. Stay interviews ask the same questions while there is still time to act.
The figures at a glance
The headline numbers for each sector, side by side. The unhappy figure is the median of organisation-level rates.
| Sector | Orgs | Leavers | Median unhappy | Movers to higher pay | Left within 2 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private sector | 13 | 2,279 | 52% | 77% | 33% |
| Public sector, education & not-for-profit | 7 | 810 | 51% | 59% | 40% |
| NHS trusts | 10 | 3,063 | 44% | 51% | 38% |
The three most-cited reasons for leaving in each sector, as a share of all leavers:
- Private sector: career progression (49%), personal growth (46%) and reward and recognition (45%)
- Public sector, education & not-for-profit: teamwork and cooperation (42%), career progression (41%) and well-being (41%)
- NHS trusts: personal growth (42%), career progression (42%) and well-being (40%)
Source: great{with}talent leaver benchmark. LastOpinion exit questionnaires; each organisation’s latest rolling twelve months, ending between May 2026 and September 2026 (private sector), ending between June 2026 and September 2026 (public and not-for-profit) and ending between June 2026 and September 2026 (NHS). Organisations included only with fifty or more completed questionnaires; sectors shown only with five or more organisations; no organisation named. Tenure figures cover the organisations that record length of service. Medians are of organisation-level rates; reason percentages pool all leavers in a sector. Get your own figures with LastOpinion, or put a cost on them with the turnover calculator.
See what your own data already knows.
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