Workplace interruptions are resulting in an estimated annual loss of GBP £488 billion for the British economy, according to research by UK IT company Nasstar.
The analysis, based on data from Microsoft’s Work Trends, indicates that employees in white-collar office environments are experiencing interruptions every four minutes during standard working hours. These disruptions originate from a combination of ad hoc meetings, emails, and internal chats, contributing to significant productivity loss across multiple sectors of the economy.
The company’s findings suggest that a typical office worker faces 120 interruptions per workday. Data further highlights that the busiest office staff may be interrupted as frequently as every two minutes. Nasstar’s analysis also reveals that 60% of meetings in the UK are currently unplanned, and employees, on average, receive 58 after-hours messages daily. Microsoft’s Work Trends data suggests a year-on-year increase of 15% in this out-of-hours communication.
Sean Morris, Chief Technology Officer at Nasstar, commented on the findings, stating:
“The data speaks for itself: businesses in the UK are facing a productivity crisis on an unprecedented scale, collectively losing over £480 billion a year not because of distractions outside of work but because the tools we use within the workplace are becoming increasingly noisy and distracting. But the solution isn’t to just abandon email or Microsoft Teams, or implement a company-wide policy that bans ad hoc meetings.
“The real answer involves getting those workplace tools that we’re already using every day to work for us instead of against us… and for that we need to embrace intelligent automation in our day-to-day work.”
The study estimates a 25% drop in productivity due to workplace interruptions, with the effects most pronounced in the UK’s white-collar sectors. According to Nasstar, the finance and insurance sector is hardest hit, with an annual cost of lost productivity at GBP £63 billion. The professional, scientific, and technical sector, as well as health and social services, both register an annual loss of GBP £60 billion each. Education and information & communications are also significantly affected, at GBP £45 billion and GBP £43 billion respectively.
Other sectors experiencing high levels of productivity loss include public administration and defence at GBP £36 billion, business administration and support services at GBP £38 billion, and retail and wholesale office-based roles at GBP £36 billion per year.
Morris provided context to the overall impact, saying:
“To put the scale of that lost productivity into context, it amounts to roughly 15% of the UK’s entire GDP, or more than the annual GDP of Luxembourg, Cyprus, and New Zealand… combined. But it’s important to remember that we’re not talking about frivolous distractions that companies can easily block, like employees scrolling on Facebook or watching videos on TikTok. These workplace interruptions come from legitimate work communications, and they often arise because of requests that are essential, decisions that need to be made, or information that is required by someone else in the company.
“British businesses aren’t losing £488 billion a year because people are slacking off… they’re losing it because our current workplace tools are fundamentally broken, and without agents it’s likely that generative AI will just add to the noise.”
Role of agentic AI
Nasstar’s analysis suggests that while standard generative AI tools can compound digital overload, platforms that utilise ‘agentic’ AI-such as Microsoft’s Copilot Studio-may offer a potential resolution by carrying out tasks autonomously rather than simply producing content. This approach aims to address workflow issues without contributing to the volume of internal communications.
Ash Ward, Comms Capability Lead at Nasstar, emphasised the difference in this approach:
“The real breakthrough with Copilot Studio is that it doesn’t just understand what you’re asking, it actually does something about it. Instead of generating yet another email or calendar entry, these agents can get to the root of the problem, resolving what might once have taken five emails, a few Teams messages, and half an hour of back-and-forth.”
“The goal isn’t to replace human judgment, but to amplify it, freeing people from the admin that slows them down. Because the real productivity shift isn’t about doing more work, it’s about creating the space to do the right work. When the noise drops, clarity follows.”
Economic context and methodology
The Nasstar report bases its calculations on the assumption that 67.9% of UK employment consists of white-collar, office-based roles, driven by figures from the Office for National Statistics’ Standard Occupational Classification groupings. The estimated annual cost was calculated as a 25% productivity loss against the sectoral share of the UK’s 2024 GDP, which stands at GBP £2.884 trillion.
According to Nasstar, Microsoft’s research suggests interruptions could occur even more frequently-every two minutes-which would imply the current GBP £488 billion estimate is conservative. The methodology accounted for post-interruption ‘resumption lag’, averaging one minute before a worker can fully refocus.
As detailed in Nasstar’s analysis, over 230,000 organisations are already creating AI agents with Copilot Studio, signalling a trend towards practical adoption in business environments. With workplace interruptions continuing to escalate, the company states that timely implementation of effective agentic AI solutions will be an important consideration for UK businesses.