placeholder
Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

Listen up employers! Brits reveal what their ideal job looks like

From flexi-time and paid sick leave, to smart casual dress and a company based in London

If you could piece together your ideal job, what would it look like? Well, according to a new study from the UK’s leading independent job board, CV-Library, Brits are after a flexible London-based education job, in a company with less than 250 people, which pays £25,500 per year!

The survey of over 1,200 UK professionals, which sought to find out exactly what the average person wants when it comes to pay, benefits, working patterns and more, reveals that Brits are after the following from their job:

  • Nearly four in 10 (39.8%) think a salary of £25,500 is reasonable, while 27.5% want a higher pay of £35,500 per year
  • The majority (53.6%) would prefer to work flexi-time, choosing their eight hours between 06:00 and 18:00 – only 25.1% want to stick with the traditional 9-5
  • A further 38.7% would be happy with 25 days holiday, while 36.7% would want to stretch to 30 days
  • What’s more, 40.4% would prefer to work for a business with less than 250 employees, compared to 7.4% who wanted to work for a start-up and 19.7% for a large corporate company
  • And two-thirds (66.4%) want to work somewhere that has a smart/casual dress code

When asked to share the top three workplace perks or benefits they’d like to receive, 60% said paid sick leave, 56.6% said the ability to work from home and 41.1% said health insurance. In addition, 26.4% wanted staff discounts, 23.2% a company car and 19.6% income protection. When asked what pension contribution they’d like their employer to pay, 28.5% said 10% and 26.9% said 5%.

London was voted the location professionals would most like to work in, with 27.2% of Brits stating that their ideal job would be based in the capital. This was followed by Brighton (7.9%) and Bournemouth (7.3%). When asked what industry they would work in if they could choose any, education got the highest number of votes (18.9%), followed by charity (16.8%), engineering (15.6%) and IT (13.8%).

Lee Biggins, founder and CEO of CV-Library comments:

“Everyone wants to get something different out of the workplace – whether it’s a good pay packet, or the ability to work more flexible hours. If you’re hiring right now, it’s always best to have a clear idea of what candidates want from their role, so you can make an offer they can’t refuse.”


About CV-Library

CV-Library is one of the UK’s largest online job sites and attracts over 4.3 million unique job seekers every month. Founded by Lee Biggins in 2000, CV-Library is the UK’s leading independent online job board with a database of over 13 million CVs.