Absence rate calculator (UK)
Work out your sickness absence rate as a percentage and as days per employee - then see how it compares with the current UK average.
Your figures
Count only working days lost - exclude weekends, bank holidays, annual leave and each person's non-working days, or the rate is overstated. Two official UK benchmarks exist and they disagree by more than double: ONS 4.4 days (2.0%) and CIPD 9.4 days. That's methodology, not error - see below.
Absence rate = days lost ÷ (employees × working days in the period) × 100. Twenty-five people, 260 working days each and 120 days lost gives 6,500 available days and a rate of 1.8%, or 4.8 days per person. For context, the two UK benchmarks are 4.4 days (ONS) and 9.4 days (CIPD) - and the gap between them is methodological, not a mistake.
How do you calculate absence rate?
- Count the working days lost. Sickness absence only - not annual leave, not bank holidays, not someone's regular non-working day.
- Work out available days: employees × working days in the period.
- Divide and multiply by 100. That's your percentage.
Both outputs are worth quoting. The percentage is what benchmarks are usually expressed in; days per employee is what a board actually understands.
What is the average sickness absence rate in the UK?
There are two official answers, and they differ by more than double. Both are correct - they measure different things, and almost nobody explains why:
| ONS | CIPD | |
|---|---|---|
| Days per worker per year | 4.4 | 9.4 |
| Rate | 2.0% of hours | ~3.6% of a 260-day year |
| Source | Labour Force Survey - households | Health & Wellbeing at Work - employers |
| Who reports it | workers, about themselves | HR teams, from records |
| Key exclusion | only counts absence where hours actually fell short of contracted hours | counts recorded absence days |
| Published | 1 May 2026 (2025 data) | September 2025 |
So which should you benchmark against? If you're comparing your HR records to a national figure, CIPD's 9.4 days is the closer like-for-like, because it's also drawn from employer records. The ONS 2.0% is the right figure for economy-wide comparisons and is the one that appears in most news coverage. Quoting one without naming which is how two people end up arguing about whether 5% is good.
For trend: CIPD's employer figure was 5.8 days pre-pandemic and 7.8 days in 2023, so 9.4 is the highest in more than 15 years. CIPD puts mental ill health as the leading cause of long-term absence and the second most common cause of short-term absence (CIPD, ONS).
Why the rate alone can mislead
Two teams can share a 3% rate and have completely different problems. One person off for eight weeks after surgery is a very different management situation from eight people taking a day each month - and the second is far more disruptive to cover. That's exactly what the Bradford Factor (or work out a score with the Bradford Factor calculator) was designed to expose: it weights frequency over duration, so ten single days scores 1,000 while one ten-day absence scores 10.
Read the rate alongside a frequency measure, and split short-term from long-term absence before drawing any conclusion.
What should you exclude?
- Pregnancy-related sickness - counting it is automatic pregnancy discrimination.
- Disability-related absence - usually discounted or given an adjusted threshold as a reasonable adjustment.
- Statutory leave - family leave, carer's leave and time off for dependants aren't sickness.
The full list is in what to exclude from absence scoring, and sensible thresholds are in absence trigger points.
What does absence cost?
Since April 2026, Statutory Sick Pay runs from day one at up to £123.25 a week - roughly £24.65 per sick day for a five-day worker, and unreclaimable. Put your own numbers through the SSP cost calculator, and see what changed in April 2026. Cover, overtime and lost output usually cost more than the sick pay itself.
This calculator applies the statutory rules as published and shows its working, but it cannot know your contracts, your policies or anything unusual about the case. Treat the figure as a starting point, and take advice on anything contested or expensive.
Your absence rate, always current
CoDash calculates absence rates and Bradford Factor scores from real records - with exclusions handled, patterns flagged and return-to-work prompts built in.