1. Unrepresentative data: Some sectors are experiencing a decline in happiness - particularly in the public sector, media and science. And if your sample isn’t representative, you’re not going to be able to get the full picture.
2. Mistaking US Trends for the UK: Those in the US are tapping out. Average happiness has declined since March 2024. But what goes on over the pond doesn’t always hold true for the UK.
3. Relying on anecdotal evidence: You’re always going to miss the bigger picture if you focus on stories over stats. There's an anecdote to fit with any story - but you've got to be able to move into trends to figure out what's really going on.

Top 5 roles for happiness at work?

1. IT
2. Engineer
3. Field engineer or tradesperson
4. Marketing or advertising
5. Software engineer or developer

IT, software engineering and marketing roles have shown a big uptick in happiness over the past few years. This could be becase AI has offered the opportunity to become far more strategic with their role. There's the chance to outsource many of the day to day activities and transform their role into something much more creative.

Engineers and field engineers have registered high levels of happiness since Wisdom started collecting data - people are persistently happy in these roles.

Which roles are least happy?

1. Factory or warehouse operator
2. Research or development
3. Customer service
4. Content production or creative
5. Administration

Three of these roles - customer service, content production and administration - are heavily vulnerable to being replaced by artificial intelligence. Changes in scientific funding, and cancellation of various studies in the US may have led to research and development professionals feeling particularly dissatisfied at work - there's more global competition, and increased anti-science discourse.