UK workers lose 28 days a year to poor data handling

Multiverse has released new figures showing that UK workers lose 28 working days a year to inefficient data-related work, at an annual cost to the economy of £53.37 billion.

The findings are based on Multiverse's annual Skills Intelligence dataset, which drew on responses from 6,690 workers, alongside separate Focaldata polling of 1,830 UK adults. The data shows rising time lost through poor data handling, up from 27 working days in 2025 and 25 in 2024.

The increase comes as employers face pressure to improve productivity and make practical use of artificial intelligence. In Multiverse's study, 97% of workers said they wanted to improve their AI skills, up from 91% a year earlier, while 93% wanted to improve their data skills.

Access to training, however, remains limited. Focaldata polling commissioned by Multiverse found that three in four UK adults have never received any AI training, formal or informal.

Skills gaps

The research suggests the biggest weaknesses lie not in interest, but in applying AI and data tools in day-to-day work. Multiverse found that 80% of self-ratings for AI adoption, including identifying, introducing and scaling AI across a team, were recorded as “a new area for me”, while only 1% of respondents described themselves as experts.

Among workers on the company's more advanced AI programme, 57% said they had identified a task where an AI agent could help, but only 16% had built one. On data strategy, 70% of self-ratings were “a new area for me”, compared with 35% for data governance.

The figures also point to uneven performance across sectors. Healthcare recorded the largest improvement, reducing the share of working time spent inefficiently on data from 41% to 35%.

Other parts of the economy moved in the opposite direction. Financial services rose from 32.5% to 35%, while councils increased from 30% to 32%.

In financial services, the dataset found a sharp contrast between confidence in ethical questions and confidence in oversight. Workers in the sector ranked first among industries for confidence in AI ethics, but second-lowest for AI governance.

Employees also attached significant time savings to better use of AI. Asked how much time the AI idea they brought to training could save, workers estimated 6.1 hours a week, equivalent to about 35 working days a year.

New tool

Alongside the data, Multiverse has launched a conversational AI voice agent designed to help employers identify barriers to AI adoption across their workforce. The system allows employees to describe their tasks and current use of data and AI by voice or chat.

The tool is intended to identify individual skills gaps while also producing anonymised, aggregated information for teams and organisations. The aim is to show where adoption is slowing and what obstacles employees are encountering in practice.

The underlying technology was developed at the company's Edinburgh AI Hub.

“Every business in Britain knows its cashflow to the penny. But almost none of them know what their people can do with AI, and that is where their spend is going to waste. The Chancellor's growth plans depend on AI raising productivity, but if organisations don't know where the gaps are, they can't fix them. Workers have far greater context on their workplace challenges than anyone else, but until now that rich seam of intelligence has never properly been surfaced. We want to give employers visibility, and workers the opportunity to explain the challenges they're facing,” said Euan Blair, founder and chief executive officer of Multiverse.

A second executive said the tool is intended to give managers a clearer picture of lost time and underused systems.

“Every working week holds an honest account of what's slowing a business down, but most companies never hear it. Diagnose listens to every person, finds the hours lost and the tools left unused, and plays it back across the whole organisation. That means that leaders can stop guessing where to invest and start knowing,” said Richman.