A majority, or 70%, of the UK’s working population is “chronically broke”, according to a new report from the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

The report, Thriving, Striving, or just about Surviving?, set out to find out how workers are faring both in terms of their experiences of economic security and the quality of work in the UK. 

The aggregate findings of the report show that that many workers have critical concerns. When it comes to workers' financial circumstances, 26% of workers do not feel like they earn enough to maintain a decent standard of living. Meanwhile, 34%, or a third of the workforce, would consider themselves to be ‘just about managing’. Furthermore, 43% do not have anyone in their household who they could depend on to support them financially in the event of hardship.

With regard to the quality of work, the report stated that many report poor experiences as 28% of workers feel less secure in their jobs than they did five years ago, 32% work excessive hours, and 47% often find work stressful. Less than half, or 40%, of workers feel that they have good opportunities for career progression.

The report highlighted the nearly million people on zero-hour contracts and the 1.7 million who are in temporary work; as well the record 4.8 million in self-employment, and the estimated 1.1 million people in the gig economy.

“This rise in atypical work has been followed by fears that the labour market is fragmenting into low paying, poorly protected jobs. The more flexible the workforce becomes, the more insecure workers appear to be,” the report stated.

The RSA report also constructed a segmentation, which they stated helped the authors of the report identify patterns in experiences of economic security and work. The patterns are expressed as the seven portraits of modern workers.  The seven groups are the chronically precarious, the acutely precarious, flexi-workers, steady-staters, The idealists, the strivers, and the high-flyers. Details on the seven portraits are included in the report.

“Despite the differences between the seven segments persuasively described in this report we can clearly see how many people are impacted by common problems,” Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the RSA, and author of the Taylor Review, which was published last year and reviewed modern employment practices, said. “Precarious work is a theme, as is a lack of autonomy or control at work (both issues underline the call for good work in the review I undertook for government last year).”