A survey of more than 2,500 people has found that those working for charities are among the happiest employees when compared with other sectors.

However, this survey also reveals that charity workers are more likely to feel undervalued and be concerned around their career prospects.

Based on an overall job happiness score, that includes factors such as pay, workplace culture, and career prospects, the charity sector has emerged as the fourth happiest with a rating of 76.7%

The only happier workers are in science and pharmaceuticals, creative arts and design and environmental and agriculture, which make up the top three.

Other happy workforces ranked below charity employees are those working for advertising, PR, legal, leisure, engineering, accountancy and marketing firms.

Charities have the second highest rating out of any other sector for good working relationships (82%) and having a positive impact on their mental health (79.5%).

“This indicates that charity workers are most happy with the connections they have at work and how their job affects their own and others’ lives,” said tech firm Reboot Online, which commissioned the survey.

Pay and career progression concerns

But charity workers achieved low satisfaction scores regarding their salary and in terms of job empowerment.

While 86.5% those in science and pharmaceutical sectors feel empowered, this drops to just 45% among charity workers. Only 38.6% of charity workers are happy with their pay compared to seven out of ten in environmental and agriculture.

The charity sector has been rocked by a raft of strikes among staff amid the cost of living crisis around pay. This has included staff at homelessness charity Shelter and support charity Hestia.

Only around four in ten (43%) of charity workers feel they have good career prospects, the survey also found. In contrast more than eight out of ten accountants are happy with their career progression.

The sectors with the least happy workers include sales, customer service, hospitality, healthcare, recruitment and transport.

Reboot Online chief executive said: “It is really important to build an employee-first workplace culture as it fosters a sense of trust, positivity and opportunity for employees to take ownership of their work, voice ideas and participate in shared values.

“Instead of continually overwhelming them with work, take the time to understand the way they work and how they want to develop in their role and then adjust for it.

The survey was carried out among 18 to 70 year year olds in January this year. This included workers in 29 different job sectors.

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