Ricoh UK has published research showing that UK workers spend more time on administrative tasks than employees in other surveyed European markets. The study found that UK workers spend 31% of their time on non-core admin.

The research covered workers in the UK, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany. Italy recorded the lowest share of time spent on admin at 21%.

The UK ranked ahead of Spain at 29%, Germany at 27%, France at 26%, and the Netherlands at 23%. UK office workers surveyed reported losing 15 hours a week to administrative work, or nearly two working days.

Only 51% of UK office workers surveyed said they spend most of their day on tasks that deliver direct value. The research also pointed to growing pressure on retention, with 15% saying they had considered leaving their organisation because of admin burdens alone.

Workplace Strain

The study suggests the issue is affecting team relationships as well as productivity. In the UK, 19% of workers said admin creates conflict or tension within their team, while 16% said they feel resentful towards colleagues with lighter admin loads.

Just 21% said administrative work is distributed equally, and 16% reported generational tension, with younger colleagues seen as resisting such tasks. Nearly a quarter, or 24%, said admin limits their productivity, while 21% said it leaves them less motivated or disengaged. Another 19% said it stifles their creativity.

Across Europe, 48% of employees surveyed said they were considering a new role within the next 12 months. The UK findings indicate admin is one of several pressures shaping how employees view their working day and their employer.

Ricoh also found a gap between how workers view the problem and how they think managers respond. Only 20% of UK workers said they feel their employer cares about admin overload, while 27% said managers underestimate the time it consumes.

Technology Questions

The research comes as businesses continue to review the role of automation and artificial intelligence in office work. In Ricoh’s survey, 34% of respondents reported feeling anxious about the prospect of being replaced.

Uncertainty over how technology will be introduced can add to frustration in workplaces already dealing with heavy administrative demands. The figures suggest the debate is not only about job redesign, but also about employer communication and staff confidence.

Ed MacArthur, Practise Lead – Process Automation at Ricoh UK, said: “UK organisations have pushed hard on digital transformation over the past decade, but that investment hasn’t always translated into simpler workflows for employees. Instead, many are dealing with layers of systems, reporting requirements and compliance processes that sit alongside their core role. That creates duplication, manual workarounds and a heavier administrative load than in markets where processes are either more standardised or less fragmented.”

He said the issue also reflected a mismatch between employee expectations and workplace systems.

Time Reclaimed

MacArthur added, “There is also a clear expectation gap. UK employees are used to consumer-grade technology in their personal lives and expect the same level of ease and integration at work. When workplace tools fall short or when automation is introduced without being properly embedded into day-to-day workflows, it adds friction. The result is a disconnect between the technology organisations believe they’ve invested in and the reality employees experience.”

The survey also asked workers what lighter admin loads would mean for their working lives. Nearly a third (31%) said they would enjoy their job more if they had more freedom to focus on creative tasks.

Another 30% said they would use the time to recharge, while 28% said they would invest it in learning new skills. These responses suggest employees see administrative work not only as a drain on time, but also as a barrier to development, recovery and engagement.

MacArthur said, “When a large share of the week is taken up by repetitive admin, it quickly drains motivation and limits the time people can spend on meaningful work. As the pressure builds, for some, it becomes a reason to look elsewhere. At the same time, uncertainty around AI is adding to the strain. Without clear communication and investment in skills, technology risks creating anxiety rather than confidence, especially as organisations add too many tools. Retention comes down to whether people feel supported and see a future for themselves in the company.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office has launched a public awareness campaign to help parents support children in making safer choices online. It is the regulator’s largest campaign focused on child online privacy.

Macclesfield-based design agency Nexer Digital designed and built the campaign’s online hub as the ICO’s digital delivery partner. Called Switched on to privacy, the campaign targets parents and carers of primary school-aged children and is built around the prompt “chat, choose, check”.

Research cited by the ICO found that 75% of parents are concerned their children are not making safe decisions online. The campaign aims to encourage more regular conversations about privacy between adults and children.

The online hub was built within the ICO’s existing website infrastructure. Project details show the work began in December 2025 and was delivered in two phases, starting with a mobile-first prototype tested with parents and carers before being developed into a live service.

The service runs on the ICO’s existing Umbraco platform. It was built to WCAG 2.2 Level AA accessibility standards and includes features already used across the regulator’s site, such as Welsh language translation and site search, while maintaining a separate campaign identity.

Digital build

The campaign also sits alongside the ICO’s Children’s code, which requires organisations to prioritise children’s privacy and apply high levels of data protection by default. Alongside raising awareness, the initiative is intended to influence behaviour by giving parents practical tools and guidance they can use.

Nexer Digital also added analytics tools to show how users interact with campaign material. The ICO can track activity including downloads, bookmarks and shares to identify which resources are most useful to parents preparing for conversations about online privacy.

Simon Wissink, Account Director and Partner Manager at Nexer Digital, said: “Working with the ICO on such an important and high-profile campaign has been a valuable opportunity for our team. The challenge was to create an experience that is not only accessible and easy to use but genuinely empowers parents to take action. Through user research and iterative design, we’ve built a platform that supports meaningful engagement and can evolve with future campaigns.”

The project adds to a broader relationship between the two organisations, with Nexer Digital serving as the ICO’s digital delivery partner since 2025. Founded in 2007 and formerly known as Sigma, the agency works across research, design and development projects for public, private and not-for-profit organisations.

Parent focus

This campaign focuses on parents of younger children rather than children themselves. By targeting primary school-aged users, the ICO is addressing a stage when many families are beginning to engage more regularly with apps, games, connected devices and online services used by children.

Craig Wyna, Head of Digital at the ICO, said: “Switched on to privacy is about giving parents the confidence and tools they need to support their children in navigating the digital world safely. Nexer Digital has played a key role in bringing this vision to life through a platform that is accessible, engaging and built around user needs.”

The scale of the campaign is notable for the ICO, which has increasingly combined regulation with public-facing education on data use and privacy. The 75% figure from the campaign research underlines the level of concern among parents about children’s online decision-making and gives the regulator a clear public information brief.

For Nexer Digital, the project also reflects demand for digital public services that combine accessibility standards, user testing and measurement tools in a single service. The campaign hub was designed not only to host guidance but also to give the ICO a clearer view of how people use the content, including whether they save or share it.

The agency is part of the wider Nexer Group, a Swedish technology company with more than 2,300 staff worldwide. In the UK, it has worked with organisations including NHS England, AstraZeneca and the Department for Education.

The campaign is intended to help parents have regular privacy conversations with their children using the “chat, choose, check” framework.

CV-Library has published UK survey findings showing that 35% of recruiters say AI tools are causing them to miss out on strong candidates. The study also found that 27% believe strong applications are filtered out before interview.

The research is based on responses from 424 recruiters and employers and 1,067 candidates across the UK.

The figures highlight growing concern about automated screening in recruitment as employers handle larger volumes of applications. More than four in five recruiters, 83%, use AI to speed up hiring, while 28% use it to manage high application numbers.

Even so, recruiters appear unconvinced by some of the outcomes. Just 36% said AI improves speed-to-hire, while 20% reported an overall decline in candidate quality where AI is used.

Candidate frustration

Among jobseekers, 53% said they believe their application has been rejected by AI without any human review. Another 46% said unfair rejection is one of their biggest frustrations when looking for work.

The findings suggest this frustration is changing behaviour. CV-Library found that 40% of jobseekers have abandoned, or considered abandoning, an application because AI was used in the process, particularly when bots were deployed for screening.

One candidate described automated interviewing in stark terms. “Being interviewed by an AI bot felt incredibly alienating – there’s no feedback or human interaction, so you have no idea how you’re coming across. It feels like you’re being filtered out, and with so little real communication, it’s easy for the effort you put in to be completely overlooked,” said David, a part-time bartender.

Younger applicants were the most sceptical about the technology. Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z respondents, 64%, said they suspect AI is responsible for rejecting them at early stages of hiring, compared with lower levels among older age groups.

Gen Z was also the group most likely to cite unfair rejection as a frustration, at 53%, compared with 47% of Millennials and 46% of Gen X respondents.

Another jobseeker said AI had become difficult to avoid in the hiring process. “I stayed away from initial interviews with AI platforms – there’s no human interaction and it’s entirely impersonal. But now AI is in human calls too, taking notes during interviews. After three months without a job, what am I supposed to do? If AI is going to be a gatekeeper, I may as well use it to help me get through those gates,” said Simon.

Limits of AI

The survey suggests recruiters see clearer benefits from AI in administrative tasks than in assessing applicants themselves. Respondents said the technology performs best when writing job descriptions, cited by 63%, and handling tasks such as interview scheduling, cited by 38%.

Confidence fell sharply when recruiters were asked about more subjective parts of hiring. Some 72% said AI struggles to identify cultural fit, while 55% said it performs poorly at assessing soft skills.

That gap appears central to the headline finding that employers may be losing suitable candidates despite wider use of automated systems. The study suggests that speed and scale remain the main reasons for adoption, but recruiters still see a need for human judgement when reviewing applications and assessing people.

Lee Biggins, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of CV-Library, said: “Candidates have long felt that the human touch is ebbing away from the hiring process and that good people are getting screened out unfairly. This insight from recruiters in both agencies and businesses suggests their frustrations may be justified.

“It’s a timely wake-up call that not everything should be outsourced to AI, especially in recruitment where every candidate is unique. It can add value by automating some laborious processes, but good recruiters are using it to support human intuition, not replace it.”

CV-Library also set out steps for employers using AI in recruitment, including human oversight, clearer communication with candidates about where AI is used, and regular audits of tools to check for errors or bias. It said employers should keep automated systems focused on administrative work and leave final judgement on skills, personality and fit to recruiters and hiring managers.

The findings were also supported by case studies from jobseekers who agreed to share their experiences of AI-led hiring.