The first study to expose the true cost of admin work that businesses could automate
Fyxer Research Team • Jan 2026
It’s 2026. Every organization has access to thousands of digital tools. The rollout of AI makes it easy to believe that busywork belongs in the past, buried alongside fax machines, dial-up, and Clippy the paperclip assistant.
Yet the opportunity to access AI hasn’t eliminated admin. Far from it. Repetitive, peripheral tasks still consume the workday. Reloading the printer has been replaced by scrolling through overloaded inboxes and hammering out meeting notes.
Fyxer isn’t satisfied watching admin dominate the workday. Professionals have far more to offer. That’s why we created the Admin Burden Index: a survey of 5,000 UK and US office workers that reveals how much time they spend on specific admin tasks each day, and their attitudes toward using AI to lighten the load.
The index exposes the extent of the admin burden and quantifies the silent productivity cost to UK and US organizations. The results are clear: admin is the root of performance paralysis stunting business growth.
“Avoidable admin” and “AI-addressable admin” are used interchangeably. Both defined as the daily work tasks respondents believe could be handled by AI. Data source: OnePoll survey for Fyxer, 5,000 respondents, December 2025.
Employers are leaving solutions on the bench, with a $954 billion estimated burden cost for UK & US office workers.
That's 5.5 hours every week. The admin load is fueling the Turnover Tax: 46% of US office workers feel “overwhelmed” and 50% have considered leaving their role due to admin.
Reading, writing, and replying to emails is the biggest time waster. 32% of US workers cite the inbox as their top drain.
They also report the highest levels of admin “overwhelm”. By contrast, Midwest office workers report 30% less admin pressure—though still 57 minutes per day.
72% feel positive about AI, but only 35% have the AI tools they need. Despite this enablement gap, 3 in 4 workers say that AI has improved how they work. The US opportunity: Employers could save $3 billion per working day on admin. Target daily tasks to turn AI confidence into performance gains. Start with email and unlock time for higher-value work.
[Fyxer insight box]
That's 5.7 hours every week. 57% feel "overwhelmed" by the volume and time-pressure of admin tasks, and it s driving turnover. 46% of UK workers have considered leaving their role due to admin.
London-based employees report the highest admin time loss and 67% are overwhelmed. But they're fighting back: they're the most active AI users versus any other region.
26% of UK office workers cite reading, writing or replying to emails as their #1 time-wasting admin task.
75% feel positive about AI, but only 30% have the AI tools they need. Despite the gap, 74% say AI improves how they work when it's used. The UK opportunity: Employers could save £388 million per working day on admin. Target everyday time savings as a low-risk way to integrate AI. Start with email, where the admin burden is most visible and most easily reduced.
[Fyxer insight box]
Employees lose 5.6 hours per week to admin that could be handled by AI. Email is the #1 time-waster, outranking every other admin task surveyed.
Office workers report losing 67 minutes per day to admin that could be handled by AI. That s 5.6 hours every week. Yet this is only a fraction of the problem. Looking at actual time spent on specific admin tasks reveals a structural issue: email dominates the workday, far beyond what employees currently imagine could be automated.
All respondents feel the pressure to reply. On average, they receive 29 emails per day that need a response. For a notable minority (15.1%), that number jumps to more than 51 emails requiring a reply.
[4.3 hours stat]
[Fyxer insight box]
Neither does the workday for most office workers. 57% of employees work longer than their contracted hours every week. When people do work late, they average 55 minutes of overtime.
[Fyxer insight box]
Admin isn’t a junior problem reserved for interns and new graduates. The admin burden scales with salary. High earners spend the longest on repetitive tasks that could otherwise be handled by AI—meaning their employers pay the steepest price for avoidable admin.
[Income bands vs AI-addressable admin table]
[Industries graph showing time wasted to AI-addressable admin]
Two industries average over 4.7 hours per day in their inbox:
[Fyxer insight box]
[Average number of emails requiring a reply each day against generations]
Weekly overtime affects 56–59% of Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X, compared with 46% of Boomers. The survey data shows why: for Boomers, the admin burden is lighter and they report spending less time on email. Data from the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides the labor-market context. Older workers are significantly more likely to work part-time and/or be self-employed. Both factors lower the probability of regular overtime and increase control over working hours.
Admin is described as “taking time away from my main responsibilities” by 35% of respondents who find admin overwhelming.
Admin is described as “repetitive and boring” by 30% and more than 1 in 4 describe it as work that “could be automated”.
Even when work is “low-value,” people still feel quality pressure: 27% say they feel pressure to get admin tasks done “perfectly”.
Admin isn t time-bound. 32% say tasks “pile up faster than I can complete them”. In the UK, 28% of respondents report having too many tasks to get through each day.
In the US, 28% say they are constantly interrupted by admin tasks, which break focus and slow progress on important work.
Admin overwhelm has pushed 48% of the workforce to consider leaving their role, frustrated they can’t focus on what they were hired to do.
1 in 2 respondents have seen their workload increase in the past 12 months. Of that workload increase, 29% is admin tasks. For a notable minority - 15% of office workers - more than half of their increased workload is admin.
The UK reports a higher emotional burden caused by admin, tracking 11 percentage points higher on “overwhelm” than the US.
UK workers are swamped by admin volume and the need to get details right; US workers are frustrated that low-value tasks distract from meaningful work.
[UK overwhelm drivers graph: Title: "UK overwhelm drivers]
[UK overwhelm drivers graph: Title: "US overwhelm drivers]
[Fyxer insight box]
The UK reports higher rates of admin overwhelm, impacting immediate performance, while the US data signals the destructive downstream impact of admin — employee turnover. 50% of US respondents say they have considered leaving their role because of admin overload vs 46% of UK respondents.
Email dominates as a weekly time-waster in both markets, but US respondents are 7 percentage points more likely than UK respondents to report wasting time reading, writing or replying to emails.
[writing/replying UK/US graph: Title: Respondents who report wasting time writing or replying to emails]
[reading emails UK/US graph: Title: Respondents who report wasting time reading emails]
[Fyxer insight box]
[frontier industry admin overwhelm graph: Title: Percentage of workers who report feeling overwhelmed per industry]
The emotional admin burden only intensifies as pay increases, with higher-earners more likely to experience admin overwhelm.
[frontier industry admin overwhelm graph: Title: Percentage of workers who report feeling overwhelmed by admin per income bracket]
The US and UK show the same generational gradient; the younger the cohort, the more likely they are to feel overwhelmed. Gen Z and Millennials are more than 2x more likely than Boomers to label their admin load “overwhelming”.
[Generation vs overwhelm table]
This isn't a story about younger workers lacking resilience. The pattern of overwhelm matches actual workload. Gen Z and Millennials report greater time wasted on admin and a heavier email reply burden - meaning the generational difference isn’t just perception, it correlates with measurable task load. Older cohorts report lower levels of overwhelm, in response to lower admin time waste, lower daily email time, and faster handling of email replies.
Organizations are demanding more from employees without reaping results. Even as workloads rise for the majority of employees, a substantial share of it is admin—absorbing time and energy that could otherwise drive innovation or customer impact.
Among those whose workload has increased, 1 in 5 employees report feeling more negative toward their employer due to the increase. With nearly half of employees considering leaving due to the admin burden, low morale has become a turnover and talent-retention risk.
For employers, this creates a dual retention risk: losing experienced senior talent, who are harder to replace, and failing to meet the expectations of younger employees who represent the next 30-40 years of the workforce.
Employees aren’t waiting to be rescued, they’re already actively looking for ways to manage their admin burden, with nearly 1 in 3 turning to AI for support.
[Top 5 admin load reduction bars: Title: "Top five ways office workers are reducing their admin load"]
Employees want AI tools, but 2 in 3 say what they have is partial, ineffective or insufficient. Employer hesitation compounds the avoidable admin burden, costing UK and US employers over $954 billion annually. That’s an average of $17,000 per office worker every year.
Employees believe 67 minutes per day could be handled by AI. Positive sentiment toward AI sits at 73% across respondents, but only 41% use AI tools regularly. Where AI is being used the benefits are clear.
[Industry AI use graphs: collapsed into one, copy inputted below: Title: AI adoption per sector]
Within science, technology & research AI use has already become routine. It’s proof that AI adoption can scale into everyday work. By contrast, less than half of those in business, finance & professional services use AI regularly. There’s the opportunity to move from ad hoc experimentation to consistent, workflow-level use. Within public services, law & security, AI adoption is at its lowest. 1 in 3 have never used AI at all.
[Fyxer insights box]
Just 5% express concerns about job replacement. Despite the popular rhetoric surrounding employee-AI fears, the reality is a lack of effective tools to bridge the gap between their increasing workload and the tasks that AI could handle.
[2 in 3 stat]
Despite strong employee belief in AI, most workers say the tools provided by their employer prevent AI from becoming part of everyday work. That makes the Performance Deficit an AI-enablement problem. This theme runs across every major industry. Unsurprisingly, it’s most acute in public and frontline sectors. But even within professional and technical industries, over 50% of respondents say they’re lacking the AI tools they need.
[AI perception graph: Title: "Percentage of workers who report AI as ineffective or unsuitable per industry"]
Even with the enablement gap, 74% say AI has improved how they work. Respondents in professional and technical sectors cite the biggest improvements from using AI.
[AI perception graph 2: Title: "Percentage of workers who say AI has improved how they work"]
[Fyxer insights box]
56% of Gen Z report using AI “always” or “often”, compared with only 15% of Boomers. Since younger workers report the highest admin burden, it’s not surprising that they’re actively attempting to close the gap—and experiencing the greatest benefits of AI in the process.
[AI improved how I work bar graph: Title: "Percentage of workers who report that AI has improved how they work, per generation"]
Older cohorts are more likely to say that they don’t have the right tools, or that they do have access to tools but don’t use them effectively. Notably, Boomers are 4× more likely than Gen Z to say they haven’t been given the right AI tools. Outright negative AI sentiment remains a minority view among older generations with fewer than 1 in 10 Gen X or Boomer respondents feeling concerned about AI.
[Gen Z vs Boomer negative sentiment table]
Income predicts AI adoption. High earners use AI at twice the rate of low earners. That usage gap translates directly to a benefit gap: 84% of high earners say AI improved their work, compared with 65% of low earners. Higher earners also report better access, with a greater number feeling “fully equipped” with the AI tools they need.
[Income vs adoption bar: Title: "Percentage of workers who report using AI frequently, per income bracket"]
Men use AI more than women. They also benefit more. Outright negative sentiment toward AI is low for both men and women, so the gap isn't driven by distrust or resistance. It's about enablement. Women are more likely than men to say they haven't been given the right tools, or that they have access to AI tools but don't use them effectively. Failing to successfully equip half of the workforce means that organizations are leaving productivity gains on the table.
[AI use graphs per gender]
Admin that could be automated continues to consume employee time, drain cash and block productivity gains that AI has already proven it can deliver.
Over 73% are positive about AI. Low adoption reflects weak enablement, not skepticism.
2 in 3 employees say their AI tools are insufficient. Productivity gains are concentrated among younger workers, high earners, men and professional or technical sectors—which risks leaving everyone else behind.
Nearly 75% of AI users say these tools have improved their work, rising above 90% in science, technology and research sectors.
[Top 5 admin load reduction bars: Title: "Top five ways office workers are reducing their admin load"]
As the invisible overhead, admin represents systemic inefficiency not poor individual time management. Employees face a tidal wave of low-value, repetitive tasks which displace the core work that drives business growth.
For the first time, The Admin Burden Index has lifted the curtain on the cost of avoidable admin hitting employers: $954 billion each year that doesn’t show up on the balance sheet. That's $17,000 per office worker.
On top of this cost, admin is generating a turnover tax. High earners and younger generations will exit roles if the volume of admin remains unaddressed. But employees aren’t surrendering to their admin burden; 30% are looking for AI solutions to lighten their workload and refocus attention on higher-value work.
Yet the workforce performance deficit persists. Employees of all ages, across industries and income levels, lack the AI tools they need to maximize the impact of their role. For employers, there are three next steps to take.
The Admin Burden Index is built from primary data collected for Fyxer by OnePoll, an independent market research company. OnePoll surveyed 5,000 UK and US office workers, plus 6,000 nationally representative adults, between November and December 2025, to capture:
To calculate the $954 billion annual cost of avoidable admin, OnePoll surveyed a representative sample of UK and US office workers on annual income and hours spent on AI-addressable admin, then extrapolated this cost across the office worker population of both countries.
The report is supplemented with anonymized behavioral data from Fyxer’s platform and proprietary research, including user interviews and surveys conducted globally throughout 2025.
Fyxer is the email assistant that organizes your inbox, writes draft replies and takes actionable meeting notes. Fyxer processed 1.4 billion emails in 2025 and saves users an average of one hour a day on avoidable inbox admin.