Benefits experts Perkbox have released data which reveals that UK workers are under shocking levels of stress – and workers in Cardiff are suffering most.

In order to assess the impact of stress at work, Perkbox undertook a study of 3000 UK workers and found that 59% of staff admit that they suffered from work-related stress.

Researchers also identified the worst 10 cities in the UK for workplace stress – and despite the perceptions of a ‘stressed city lifestyle’, surprisingly, London did not top the list:

1. Cardiff 70%
2. Wolverhampton 64%
3. London 59%
4. Coventry 57%
5. Liverpool 55%
6. Oxford 55%
7. Leicester 53%
8. Brighton and hove 51%
9. Southampton 51%
10. Edinburgh 50%

Wales as a whole was clearly the most stressed region in the UK, and researchers concluded that the most stressed employees in the UK are likely to be age 25–34 years old, male, living in Cardiff, and working in sales or HR.

Researchers named the departments most likely to experience work stress:

1. Sales 79%
2. Human resources 76%
3. Informaton technology (IT) 65%
4. Senior management 64%
5. Marketing, PR and communications 63%
6. Customer services 62%
7. Operatons 61%
8. Research and development 56%
9. Accountng and fnance 55%
10. Facilities 54%

Stress levels also seemed to correlate with company size, with staff in smaller companies showing less stress.  Long working hours was the largest cause cited (21%) but stress seemed to be cause by a multitude of factors, including poor company culture, office politics and performance related issues.  Stress seems to have most impact on sleep, with 65% of staff reporting sleep loss due to stress.

It seemed too, that stress was lessened by age, with older employees becoming less stressed at work.

Over half of those surveyed (55%) report that their employer has measures in place to support staff who have stress.  However, as Perkbox note, this worryingly indicates that 45% of staff are working for employers offering no support for stress in the workplace.

The full findings can be downloaded here, and Chieu Cao, co-founder and chief marketing officer (CMO) at Perkbox, called on executives and managers to take urgent notice of the findings:

“How successfully workers are able to manage not only work-related stress, but also that which originates at home or in their personal lives, can have a huge impact on businesses’ productivity and staff retention – and in turn, profitability and stability.

“The management of it is something that should be on the agendas of C-suite level discussions around the country.”