2025 - the year of the (job)share!
As 2025 comes to a close, we’re taking stock of the current state of the nation in relation to jobsharing! 2025 has been a really exciting year at The Jobshare Revolution, with an explosion of the discussion and application of jobsharing across the UK and in our recent episode of Jobshare Stories, we explored the current landscape – we looked at what’s changed, what has changed, what’s emerging, and what might be next for jobsharing – the most flexible form of part-time working!
Laura Walker - Co-Host of Jobshare Stories Podcast
Jobshare Stories is the leading podcast shining a light on the power of jobsharing and the impact that jobshare can have
This year, we’ve seen a fundamental shift in the UK, with a resurgence of jobsharing as a way of working which tackles many organisational talent challenges – retaining top talent, supporting working parents to balance childcare and work, creating a model that helps those living with healthcare conditions and disabilities to thrive at work – and maximising the potential of an intergenerational workforce! It’s great to see more organisations leveraging the power of jobsharing.
Jobsharing – the most transformative form of part-time working
Let’s start with the big picture. Flexible work is no longer a fringe topic. Recent survey data shows that around a quarter to a third of workers in Great Britain now follow some form of hybrid pattern, splitting time between home and workplace, and this is becoming a new normal for many higher‑skilled and higher‑paid roles (ONS)
Jobsharing itself is still a smaller slice of the labour market, but growing. After a decline in the popularity and prevalence of jobsharing in the UK post the pandemic years, 2025 has been a pivotal turning point. Jobsharing is showing a resurgence in 2025 with a 41% increase in the number of jobsharing contracts in the UK with recent estimates suggesting there are now around 120,000 people on jobsharing contracts in the UK, up from under 90,000 just a year earlier. This rise of over 40% indicates a rising interest from both employers and employees.
Alongside this, broader flexible and hybrid working research points to very high availability of some kind of flexibility across employers, and strong links between flexibility, wellbeing and retention, which sets the context for jobsharing becoming more mainstream rather than an exception (CIPD)
On the candidate side, Flexa’s recently released data from millions of job searches which shows that demand for flexible roles, including jobsharing and part‑time work, is moving into the mainstream across generations. Their 2025 insights highlight that people are increasingly filtering roles by flexibility first, not last, suggesting that employers offering jobsharing or shared‑role options are better placed to attract and retain talent in a tight labour market.
And specifically around jobsharing, Flexa’s data from Sept 2025 showed some transformative changes. Their surivey showed that 36% of the workforce are interested in jobsharing. This reflects a “fundamental shift in how people want to work, optimising productivity, protecting wellbeing, and bringing multiple perspectives to a single role”.
This certainly echoes what we’re seeing in our work – with jobsharing being leveraged as a strategic talent enabler across organsiations like Aviva, Lloyds, Zurich, JP Morgan and KPMG. Jobsharing really is a talent trend of 2025.
The Future of Work x The Future of Jobsharing
The reason that jobsharing seems to be resurging seems to come from the fact that jobsharing both tackles the challenges facing organisations, but also leverages the workforce and cultural changes we’re seeing into the second half of 2020s! Key themes are emerging bout the power of intergenerational jobshares, leveraging AI and the power of co-leadership or “TopSharing”.
#InterGenJobShare
In a workforce increasingly made up of 5 generations, one of the most interesting themes of 2025 has been intergenerational jobsharing. InterGen Jobshare is deliberately pairing older workers with younger colleagues in one shared role. Research led from the University of Kent, for example, has explored intergenerational jobsharing as a way to retain older employees for longer, while they coach and mentor younger staff who are earlier in their careers. The idea is to keep experience in the organisation and create a structured way to pass it on. In practice, that might look like a senior professional easing towards retirement sharing a role with an emerging leader. The older partner contributes deep organisational knowledge, networks and judgement, while the younger partner brings fresh skills, perhaps in digital or new ways of working, and both benefit from flexible hours.
With many sectors facing talent shortages, this approach reframes jobsharing from a ‘nice to have’ flexibility perk into a strategic tool for knowledge transfer, succession planning, and multigenerational collaboration
AI accelerating jobshare impact
Another emerging theme is how AI is quietly making jobsharing easier. Jobshare partners have always relied on great communication and clear handovers; now they can augment this with digital tools.
AI‑enabled tools can help with summarising long email threads, generating draft handover notes, analysing calendars to spot clashes, or even supporting matching between potential jobshare partners by looking at skills, working patterns and preferences
Historically, jobsharing could be quite time intensive and, in recent years, could be described as digitally intensive: pairs use shared documents, messaging apps and workflow tools heavily. Adding AI on top of this stack can reduce friction and make it more practical to run senior roles in a shared way without sacrificing speed or accountability.
Whereas a “handover day” was historically necessary to transfer information, collaborations now unlock the true power of jobhsaring to optimsie ways of working and the power of two brains.
Co-Leadership and TopSharing
The final big trend we’ve seen working with jobsharers during 2025, is a clear rise in the amount of jobsharing at very senior levels. From Co-CEOs of Restless Development and Society of London Theatre and UK Theatres to the Directors in the Civil Service, Finance Directors and C-Suite members, the examples are multiple! There is a clear case to reposition jobsharing away from a tactical flexible working solution to a strategic lever to attract, retain and promote the best talent to the top of organisations.
Across our jobshare coaching clients and beyond, we see amplified power from two brilliant minds co-leading organisations and teams. Not only does this deliver diversity of thought, it creates organisational resilience and wider scope and reach in the most senior roles.
In Germany, a large‑scale research project has been launched in partnership with major employers such as Daimler and the WZB social science centre, focusing specifically on jobsharing, top‑sharing and shared leadership. The goal is to move beyond anecdotes and measure what makes jobsharing successful: leadership support, good matching processes, communities of practice, and clear guidelines. Companies like Daimler have been experimenting with jobsharing for over a decade and now see it as a permanent part of their working culture rather than a pilot.
Ending the year on a high
We headed into the final weeks of 2025, we were thrilled to see Julia Gillard featured an outstanding jobsharing pair from the UK Intelligence Services on her podcast, “A Room of Ones Own”. It’s great to see such a high profile leader user her platform in discussions on gender equality, leadership and future of work to emphasise the importance of jobsharing as a flexible model that enables more diverse leaders to thrive
When former heads of government, major employers and research institutions all point in the same direction, it sends a strong signal that shared roles are not a fringe experiment, but a serious part of how leadership and work can be redesigned
Lots done - lots more to do!
So, looking back at 2025, the state of the nation is that flexible work is firmly embedded, jobsharing numbers are rising and the conversation has shifted from ‘if’ to ‘how.
Intergenerational jobshares offer a way to bridge experience and fresh skills, AI is smoothing the practicalities of sharing roles and jobsharing is expanding into Co-Leadership.
As we move into 2026, the challenge is clear: can organisations move quickly enough to use jobsharing not only as a flexibility tool, but as a lever for resilience, inclusion and closing skills gaps?
The revolution never stands still – and we’re excited to drive jobsharing even harder in 2026! We have exciting plans afoot – including:
· podcast series focussed on organisations leading the way and jobsharing at the top level
· Jobshare Day celebrations leading up to the big day on 24th January
· Accelerating jobshare networking throughout the UK
· Launching our UK jobshare research project
