Understanding Transitions and Impacts on Wellbeing Across the UK Fire and Rescue Services

Have your say on wellbeing across the UK FRS

A national research project is exploring wellbeing, workplace culture and career experiences across UK Fire and Rescue Services (FRS). The surveys are open to all staff, across all roles and services, and will help build a clearer picture of what supports people at work and where further support may be needed.

Your responses are anonymous and will be managed by Nottingham Trent University (NTU). Findings will be shared in summary form only and used to support sector-wide learning. Each survey should take 20 minutes to complete.

Click to complete the Annual Wellbeing Survey

Click to complete the Cultural Climate Survey

Why this work matters now

The demands placed on the UK FRS have changed, and the evidence on how this affects the workforce has not kept pace.

In England, services attended 603,942 incidents in the year ending March 2025, 22% more than a decade earlier. This rise has not been driven by traditional fire demand, as key fire incident categories, including more serious fires and fires in homes or other buildings, decreased over the same period. The shift is in the balance of operational work. Non-fire incidents rose by 69% over ten years and now account for 35% of all incidents, compared with 25% a decade ago, pointing to a clear diversification of demand.

Alongside this operational change, HMICFRS inspections and public reporting have made workforce pressures more visible. These reports are important, but they often show where concerns are emerging rather than why they are happening or what support would make a meaningful difference.

The 2023 Mapping the Wellbeing report provides a vital baseline, showing that stress, exhaustion and sleep disruption were already being felt across the UK FRS. This project builds on that evidence by tracking wellbeing over time, helping the sector understand how changing pressures affect people across roles, services and career stages.

What the national surveys will explore

The project uses two linked national surveys to build evidence beyond a single survey window. They will be shared together once a year for three years, so the sector can move from “what do people report now?” to “how are experiences changing, and why?” Much of the wellbeing survey builds from the 2023 Mapping the Wellbeing measures, so findings can also be compared with that baseline.

The surveys connect wellbeing with the reality of working life. They ask how people are doing, and what about the work, culture and support around them may be shaping that experience. The Cultural Climate Survey also uses short workplace scenarios, helping us understand not just what people say, but what sits behind their response.

The surveys are designed to produce evidence the sector can have confidence in. They use evidence-informed, validated measures, and the materials have been shared with sector stakeholders, so the design is not sitting apart from the workforce it is asking to hear from. The surveys have also been kept as light touch as possible while still capturing the depth needed to produce meaningful evidence.

What this work is hoping to achieve

The aim is practical sector learning, not another survey report that sits on a shelf. The surveys will provide a baseline, a way to track change over time, and a stronger basis for understanding where support may need to be strengthened, adapted or focused.

For that to matter, the evidence needs to reflect more than the loudest voices or the groups easiest to reach. That is why the project is being shaped through engagement with stakeholders across the sector, helping the surveys reach people who may not usually take part and ensuring findings are interpreted with the reality of FRS work in mind.

This is about learning, not judgement. The goal is not to create league tables or compare services in a punitive way, but to understand patterns across the workforce so conversations about wellbeing and cultural climate are grounded in evidence, not guesswork.

Who can participate?

The surveys are open to anyone currently employed by a UK FRS, across all roles.

You do not need to be struggling to take part. You might feel well supported, under pressure, somewhere in between, or simply unsure how to describe your experience. All of that matters. The research needs everyday, positive and difficult experiences, because that is what gives a true picture of working life across the FRS.

There are no right or wrong answers. What matters is that responses reflect people’s real experiences, not what they think they are expected to say. The more people who take part, the stronger and more useful the evidence becomes.

Your responses are protected

Taking part is anonymous. You will not be asked for your name or contact details. Instead, you will create a short unique code, which allows the NTU research team to link responses across future survey waves without needing to know who you are.

Although this is a collaborative PhD supported by the NFCC, the research data is managed through NTU. Raw survey data will stay with the NTU research team and will not be shared with services, employers, the NFCC or other sector stakeholders.

The NTU research team will analyse the data and have authority over how findings are used and reported. What matters is not only where the data is held, but how carefully it is handled. Anything shared outside the research team will focus on broad, anonymised patterns, not individual responses. Findings will be checked before they are shared, and small groups will be combined or left out where needed, so people cannot be recognised from what they said or from the circumstances around them.

Timeline

The survey will be repeated annually over 3 years, with dates for future waves confirmed nearer the time.

Outputs

For the sector, outputs will be designed to support practical learning. This includes providing a baseline for tracking wellbeing and cultural climate over time, identifying where pressures and support needs are emerging, and helping sector partners consider where support may need to be adapted or focused. Findings will be shared through accessible summaries, briefing papers, visual outputs and stakeholder updates, helping translate the evidence into sector learning, clearer priorities and informed conversations about support.

Academically, findings will be shared through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations. The project will contribute to the developing UK FRS wellbeing literature by adding longitudinal, whole-workforce evidence on wellbeing, culture and career experience.