Most UK workers say something other than pay matters most to them at work, according to a new survey of more than 8,000 people in four countries. For hiring teams, this means job adverts, interviews and offers that only outline salary and role responsibilities leave out the key aspects many candidates care about most.
About the research
The study, “What is Work For?”, was published at the end of October 2026 by Julian Jacobs, a researcher at the University of Oxford and Google DeepMind. It is an academic working paper shared publicly before peer review. The survey behind it was run by the research organisation More in Common.
The paper stems from a question that is increasingly popular as AI changes how work is done: if jobs change or disappear, what do people lose apart from their income? To find out, the researchers surveyed more than 8,000 working-age adults in the UK, the US, Denmark and India in June and July 2026. They asked people what matters to them at work, how much money it would take for them to stop working, what they would do with their time if they did, and how worried they are about AI replacing their job.
The paper is written for economists, but many of its findings speak directly to how employers attract and hire people.
What workers value most at work
Most people like what they do. Across the four countries, 81% said they were satisfied with their job. The researchers then sorted workers into groups based on what they said mattered most to them:
Pay (transactional): pay and benefits matter most.
Purpose (intrinsic): purpose, learning new skills and doing something useful for society matters most.
People (community): belonging and the colleagues they work with matters most.
Recognition (status-related): recognition and the standing a job gives them matters most.
In the UK, 32% of workers were in the Pay Group and 34% in the Purpose Group. Around 24% put People first and about 10% recognition. Put another way, roughly two in three UK workers said something other than money mattered most.
These groups were spread fairly evenly across job types and income levels. Across the four countries, 32% of the lowest earners put purpose first, compared with 34% of the highest earners; in other words, the view holds across pay levels.
A quarter would keep working even if paid to stop
The study asked a hypothetical question: if you were guaranteed a share of your salary without working, at what point would you stop?
Across all four countries, around three quarters said they would quit if offered their full salary. That leaves a sizeable group who would keep working even then. In the UK, 16% said they would turn down 120% of their pay to stay in their job. This is the lowest percentage of the four countries.
What people said they would do with their time also differed by the value group they fell into.
Most of the Pay Group (79%) picked leisure or travel; only 11% would look for another full-time job. A majority of the Purpose Group (57%) chose volunteering or caring for others, and 55% of the recognition group said they would carry on with paid work or start a business.
AI and job security
The survey also asked how likely people thought it was that AI or automation would replace their job within ten years.
Across the four countries, 37% of workers thought it likely that AI would take their job. That rose to 40% among office-based workers, compared with 29% in manual and service roles.
The lesson for hiring teams
If most of your candidates care about purpose, learning, the team or recognition, a hiring process that only talks about salary and duties is leaving out the things many of them weigh most. That gap shows up in job adverts that read like a list of tasks, interviews that don't discuss how someone might grow, and offers where the only lever is money.
It also matters for anyone worried about AI and job security. More than a third of workers in this survey already felt exposed. Candidates in office roles in particular may want to hear how a job will develop and where people fit as tools change.
One caution: the study is about groups of people, and it is no reason to sort individual candidates into types. Motivation changes over time. Talking about it helps candidates get a fuller picture of the role, but it shouldn't influence how they're scored.
Screenloop's practical steps for job adverts, interviews and offers
So what can you do about it? While the study doesn't offer advice, we've outlined some practical steps that can be followed without any extra budget.
Rewrite the opening of your job adverts so they say what the role contributes and what the person will learn alongside pay and benefits.
Give every interviewer a short, agreed way to describe the team, the purpose of the role and how people progress, so candidates hear the same story from each person they meet.
Leave time in interviews for candidates’ own questions about growth, the team and how the role may change with new technology.
Ask candidates about their experience of your process, including whether they understood what the job would be like. With Screenloop, this is easier than ever with Pulse, which comes with our all-in-one ATS.
Talk about recognition and development openly at offer stage, as well as salary.
How Screenloop can help
Screenloop is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) with interview intelligence built in. Our Interview Intelligence and AI notetaker records and transcribes interviews, so hiring teams can be offer candidates the best, fairest interview experience. They can refer to interviews later, check transcripts, easily provide automatically-generated feedback. Pulse, which also is included, collects candidate feedback at each stage of the process, showing how candidates are experiencing your brand and helping to highlight what they understand of the job beyond salary.
FAQ
Does this mean pay matters less?
No. Pay still matters to everyone; about a third of UK workers in the study put it first. The finding is that for most people, pay is only part of what they are looking for.
Is this a UK study?
The study covers the UK, the US, Denmark and India. The UK group breakdown and the 16% figure are UK-only; the other figures are for all four countries combined.
How reliable are the results?
It is a large survey, but it measures what people say they would do, which can differ from what they actually do. The paper has not yet been peer reviewed.
