Emily Starling , Senior Research Officer
Emily Starling is a Senior Research Officer at Acas. She worked with Acas colleagues, the National Centre for Social Research, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and independent researchers to develop a survey into conflict at work, exploring why this happens, how it affects people, and the steps they take to resolve it.
Preventing, managing and resolving conflict at work are the core ambitions of Acas's new strategy for 2025 to 2030. We know that, although levels of industrial action have fallen since 1979, the number of employment tribunal claims has increased by almost 200% in the same period. The number of early conciliation notifications to Acas are at the second highest level in 10 years. We need to understand workplace conflict: why it happens, to whom, the impact, and the steps people take to resolve it.
In summer 2025, Acas commissioned the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) to conduct a survey with working age people in Great Britain about their experiences of conflict at work. The questionnaire was based on a previous survey by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development and used a nationally representative sample of employees randomly selected via the National Centre for Social Research's household surveys, making it the most robust study of its kind.
The response rate was 50% – more than 4,000 people – so it was also the largest study of its kind in Great Britain. It provides insight into the experiences of both employers and employees, which can be reliably broken down by sector for the first time in more than a decade.
Read the full report: 'How prevalent is individual conflict at work in Great Britain in 2025?'
2 in 5 people experienced conflict at work
44% of people reported experiencing some form of conflict during the last 12 months. This includes disagreements, disputes, or ongoing difficult relationships with co-workers, managers, direct reports, colleagues in other organisations, and customers and clients.
This is the highest level of individual conflict ever reported in a survey of workers in Great Britain.
Retail workers experienced highest conflict levels
For the first time in more than a decade, we collected data about the industry people work in. One in 2 retail workers reported experiencing conflict at work in the last 12 months (50%).
Some industries with lower levels of conflict included:
- education
- professional, scientific and technical activities
- finance and insurance
- administration and support services
People working for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were more likely to report experiencing conflict than those in larger organisations. They were also less likely to take action in response to the conflict.
People whose disability has a major impact on their daily life experienced higher levels of conflict
Around 2 in 3 people whose disability had a major impact on their life (68%) reported experiencing conflict – much higher than any other group, including people with disabilities that had less impact on their lives.
The most common topic of conflict was capability and performance
Almost 2 in 5 people (38%) said their main topic of conflict was capability and performance. For managers who had conflict with their direct reports, this was the topic of almost all conflict: 94%.
This group also reported conflict for very different reasons from workers in Great Britain. They were more likely to experience conflict around:
- bullying, harassment and discrimination
- sickness absence
- employment terms and conditions
- misconduct
This reflects previous Acas research into the reasons for a recent rise in disability discrimination claims reaching employment tribunal: employers said conflict was about absence or poor performance, while claimants felt it related to their disability.
Conflict was most common with line managers and other colleagues
Conflict was most common with line managers (32%) or another colleague in the organisation (34%). Around a third of managers said they had conflict with their direct reports – similar to the percentage reporting conflict with their own managers. Under half reported conflict with a colleague.
People most commonly resolved their conflict informally
Half of people reported that their conflict was largely or fully resolved. At the other end of the spectrum, a third said it was mainly or completely unresolved.
The most common ways people tried to resolve conflict were through discussion with their own line manager (45%) or with the other person (30%). We're really encouraged by this finding; we recently published a paper on defining and enabling informal workplace conflict resolution and this is a key part of Acas's 2025 to 2030 strategy ambition to prevent conflict through healthier employment relations.
Under 10% of people reported using internal formal methods to resolve their conflict, and less than 0.5% filed an employment tribunal claim.
A sizeable minority took no action in response to the conflict (19%), including managers experiencing conflict with direct reports. Though this can sometimes resolve conflicts, it can also result in unaddressed issues remaining latent and resurfacing. This was found in the Acas report 'Managing conflict at work – policy, procedure and informal resolution'. Giving managers the confidence to intervene early and proactively is important to help create healthy, productive workplaces where conflict is prevented or identified early, and managed effectively.
Stress, anxiety or depression affected more than half of people who reported conflict
57% of people who reported experiencing conflict said this resulted in stress, anxiety or depression. Previous Acas research on estimating the costs of workplace conflict shows that this can have a negative impact on productivity, as well as being costly, with an estimated annual cost of between £590 million and £2.3 billion.
This new dataset gives us lots of opportunities to understand how to help firms and workers manage and resolve conflict earlier. We'll be using this data to update our figures on the cost of conflict, with the report due in spring 2026.
We'd be happy to discuss the findings in more detail and are really interested in your interpretations, questions and suggestions on potential avenues for further analysis, exploration and partnerships – please get in touch with research@acas.org.uk.
As we celebrate our 50th birthday, Acas will continue to support employers to get it right and upskill line managers to better manage conflict at work.