Employer mental health support reaches 91% of staff, but only 37% would use it

By Esther Smith

A survey of 2,010 UK employees finds that 91% have access to employer mental health support. Only 37% would use it.

The survey covered employees in companies with 500 or more staff. Research Without Barriers ran it online between 25 August and 2 September 2026, and Kara Connect, an employee wellbeing service provider, commissioned it. It measures what people say they would do, not what they have done. Recorded use looks lower still: a separate EAPA report puts EAP usage at about 3%, or 568,000 of 18 million.

Why employer mental health support goes unused

Speed is the obvious suspect, and the survey largely clears it. Just 15% say a wait of more than a week would put them off.

The barriers people name are about consequence. Nearly a third (32%) cite career or job security, 29% embarrassment, and 22% doubt confidentiality. Each is larger than the 15% worried about the wait. So a faster booking system or a longer list of services leaves the main reason untouched.

Two smaller barriers sit alongside. One in four don’t know how to access support, and 23% think their problem is not serious enough.

Dr Alison Bishop, an educator, researcher and coach practitioner in resilience, and founder of Resilience Resourced, puts the first barrier plainly: “It’s completely natural to hesitate when support is tied directly to the person who pays your salary.”

The frictions managers and HR control

Bishop names a second set of obstacles, and these are practical: “Do I have to explain why I’m away from my desk for an hour? How do I walk back into a busy room if I’ve just been crying?”

Neither question is clinical. Both are answered by the people who run the team. You’ll know whether an hour away needs a reason in your own organisation, and what a manager is expected to say when someone comes back to their desk.

The same walk back into the room runs through our reporting on young men taking mental health leave, where the harder part is getting them back.

Seniority adds a twist. Some 51% of senior managers would turn to employer support first, against 30% of non-managerial staff. That puts the people who design and approve employer mental health support among those most willing to use it, which makes them a poor stand-in for the people who avoid it.

Organisational psychologist Dr Maggie Sass argues, in her piece on why leaders should think twice before smoothing over tension, that friction often signals a concern worth hearing. Hesitation about a benefit may be the same kind of signal, and it will not show up in a usage dashboard.

Expectations run ahead of coverage

Employees also expect more than they believe they have. Four in five (80%) expect support for anxiety and depression, while 57% say it is covered. For stress and burnout the figures are 75% and 49%.

The pattern repeats elsewhere. Bereavement is expected by 69% and seen as covered by 48%, conflict or bullying 62% against 42%, and crisis support 47% against 30%.

These are perceptions of coverage. Some of the shortfall may be a benefit that exists but has never been explained clearly, which would make it a communication job rather than a procurement one, and it sits alongside the one in four who don’t know how to reach employer mental health support at all.

Tobba Vigfúsdóttir, founder and CEO of Kara Connect, says: “This survey shows that availability is not the same as trust.” She adds that “the job is not to buy more services. It is to make the first step feel safe: clear confidentiality, a real choice of practitioner, and managers who make asking for help normal.”

The survey offers some support for the second half of that. One in five (21%) would only feel comfortable choosing their own therapist, and 26% say digital access would make them more likely to seek help.

The first step is the part you control. Worth checking what the confidentiality promise says, who picks the practitioner, and what a manager says when someone asks for an hour, then reading those answers as a non-managerial employee would rather than a senior manager.