Some of the results move in the right direction, but overall the picture is one of modest improvement alongside a good deal of inertia.
If you focus on the core aspects of job quality, skills match, progression, meaningful work, management, voice, flexibility and training, the pattern is quite uneven.
There are clear positives. Job security is consistently very high across the period, with the vast majority of employees reporting secure employment. There has also been a significant increase in the share of employees earning at least the Real Living Wage, which represents a meaningful improvement in pay quality at the lower end of the distribution. Skills match has also improved, and flexible working has expanded. Reported line manager support remains relatively high, suggesting that many employees experience day-to-day management as broadly effective.
But this sits alongside weaker results in more structural aspects of work of importance to job quality.
Most notably, involvement in decision-making remains comparatively low. Training participation is also persistently low, and there is little evidence of a step-change in opportunities for career progression. So, while pay and security show some clear gains, this is not consistently matched by stronger levels of employee voice, involvement in decision making, development, or progression.
This matters because the results point to a distinction between improvements in pay and security on the one hand, and the more structural features of job quality on the other, particularly participation, skill development, and progression pathways.
This pattern is consistent with evidence from the 2025 SES, which similarly highlights persistent weaknesses in employee voice, progression, and training across workplaces.
These are features are closely shaped at workplace level. Decisions about investment in training, job design, employee voice, and progression structures are made within firms, and the persistence of weak outcomes in these areas suggests uneven practice across employers.
Importantly, these same features are also closely linked to productivity performance. International and UK evidence has long shown that workplaces with stronger employee voice, better job design, and sustained investment in skills tend to achieve higher productivity because they make more effective use of workers’ knowledge, improve task efficiency, and support innovation and retention.
Overall, the results suggest a labour market that is functioning reasonably well in some respects, particularly around job security and improvements at the lower end of pay, but not evolving particularly quickly in its underlying structure.
You can see the full work quality indicator results here: https://datavis.nisra.gov.uk/economy-and-labour-market/work-quality-northern-ireland-2025.html