Overwhelmed by workplace IT, 1 in 5 UK workers are losing sleep, new WalkMe data reveals
As Stress Awareness Month begins, new research* from WalkMe sheds light on the personal stress workplace tech is causing.
The findings reveal that 56% UK workers find workplace IT stressful, with 20% saying this stress has led them to experience mood swings or irritability at home, and the same number are losing sleep over it. Since this was a representative sample of the UK population, that equates out to 19 million and 6.8 million respectively.
While technology promises to make work easier especially with the growth of AI, if not used correctly it can have the opposite effect. This is especially true if, instead of being given the right tech to help them, employees are simply given more. At present UK workers are forced to juggle as many as 100+ software applications each week.
As long as technology keeps causing daily frustration, burnout will rise, productivity will suffer, and stress will even permeate into employees’ personal lives. In the last 12 months alone, workplace IT issues with UK employees has led to:
– 20% losing sleep or feeling anxious outside of work
– 10% considering quitting their job
– 10% having arguments with their partner or other family member
– 8% increasing their use of alcohol
WalkMe also found** that 35% of UK office workers regularly work late due to hard-to-use technology, and despite putting in the extra hours to compensate, 25% say issues with technology have hindered their chances of a raise or promotion in the past year.
Technology should not be holding employees back professionally, and certainly not personally.
Stress at work doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it affects employees’ mental health, families and ultimately, whether they stay in their roles. When technology becomes a daily headache, businesses risk losing talented people who feel undervalued and overwhelmed.
It’s time for organisations to take a step back and ask: where is technology helping, and where is it hurting? Although there is no silver bullet for workplace stress, by gaining visibility into where technology is causing friction and interrupting workflows, businesses can ease workplace stress, improve efficiency, and build a healthier, more engaged workforce. The right digital adoption platform (DAP) can help with that.
This frustration with workplace IT can sometimes be mistaken for employees resisting technology. But they are actually resisting complexity and inconvenience rather than the technology itself. When systems are unintuitive, training is insufficient, or guidance is missing in precisely where and when they need it, frustration builds. And while digital transformation is high on the agenda for most UK organisations, transformation without adoption is just shelfware. It’s not about throwing more apps at a problem — it’s about enabling employees to use what they already have in ways that drive business value and make their daily lives better.
Leadership must start asking tough questions: How long does it take a new hire to ramp up? How often are employees calling the help desk for the same tasks? How many enterprise licenses go underutilised because nobody knows how to use them for their specific goals? These are indicators not just of poor digital experience, but of wasted investment. By identifying points of friction, companies can unlock both productivity and employee satisfaction.
WalkMe’s DAP bridges the gap between intention and execution. It provides real-time, in-app guidance that empowers employees to complete tasks confidently — no manual hunting, no guesswork, no stress. In today’s world, where burnout is rising and retention is fragile, simplifying the digital experience isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s a strategic imperative. The businesses that win will be those who make work work for their people.
*2025 consumer survey of 1,200 diverse UK workers representative of the general population conducted by Opinium
**2024 survey of 200 UK office workers conducted by Sapio Research
NOTE: Population calculations based on March 2025 ONS figure of 33.92 million UK workers.