GFI Software today released the findings of the fourth annual IT stress survey and the results, when compared to the previous year, are somewhat worrying. In the UK alone, there was an increase of more than 20% in the affirmative answer to the question “Is your job as an IT admin stressful?” In the US, only a 1% increase was registered, but 2014 levels were already quite high and currently stand at 78%.



Opinion Matters, an independent insight agency, conducted the blind study by polling 410 IT professionals from the UK and US. In both countries management and users the IT Admins support make up around 50% of the biggest sources of stress in the workplace. Other factors include tight deadlines, lack of budgets and a lack in the IT staff complement in an organization.

What is your biggest source of stress?

Change in career

An increase was also noticed in the amount of IT admins looking at switching careers because of their current stress levels. An upward trend was noticed in both countries but once again, in the UK, things looked a lot direr. In 2014, when asked if a career change was being considered, 68% of UK IT pros replied in the affirmative yet in 2015 this number shot up to a shocking 89%. Similarly, in the US the number went from 78% in 2014 to 81% in 2015.

Impact on personal life

Another worrying statistic is the substantial decrease in IT pros saying that their career hasn’t impacted on their personal life. Whereas levels in 2014 were at around 17%, these went down to 7% in 2015. Around half of the IT admins surveyed said they have missed out on social functions and, 40% said that they have missed out on spending time with their kids.

Overtime work

In the US almost 50% of those surveyed said they work between 8 to 20 hours unpaid overtime on average every week. In the UK there was an upward trend in overtime worked and from 25% in 2014 working between 8 and 20 hours, the number rose to 28&% in 2015.

Some other key findings from the survey include:

Almost 40 percent (38 percent) of IT staff in the US regularly lose sleep due to work pressures; this goes down to 30 percent in the UK

The number of respondents experiencing stress related illnesses increased slightly, to 27 percent from 25 percent in 2014 in the US

In the UK, 26% of respondents said that their work has strained or ended a relationship with a loved one or a close friend.

If you want to read more about the findings of the survey, you can click here to access the full results including raw data.